Published in the May 23, 2018 edition

By DAN PAWLOWSKI

NORTH READING — The LHS baseball team has only played two games since their road tilt in North Reading on May 10. The Pioneers lost a home game to Masco, 9-0, but came back to beat Pentucket on the road, 8-6 on Monday. Lynnfield held their senior night on Tuesday against Newburyport after press time.

The Pioneers’ Pitching in for Pete Frates game against Arlington Catholic scheduled for Saturday May 12 was postponed due to rain.

The game against North Reading was a big opportunity to get back at their rivals after the Hornets shut out the Pioneers 7-0 on opening day.

“The kids had that on their mind a little, they wanted to atone for it,” said head coach John O’Brien. “We worked all week on the little things and today we did a lot of the little things that helped us win the game. We played very sound baseball.”

Lynnfield left town with a 6-1 win.

COOPER MARENGI gets the bench pumped up after his RBI triple in the 1st against North Reading on May 10. Marengi went 2-for-3 as the Pioneers beat the Hornets 6-1. (Dan Pawlowski Photo)

Junior Fernando Gonzalez was given the ball against the same team that beat him earlier in the year and he responded with a dominant performance on the hill and at the plate. Gonzalez pitched a complete game five-hitter with nine strikeouts and just one walk. The lefty also led the Pioneers with three hits and two RBI’s.

“He works at his craft on the mound and he is hitting the ball really well for us,” said O’Brien.

Lynnfield scored two runs in the 1st when John Singer scored on a crushed triple to right center off the bat of senior Cooper Marengi. Gonzalez then drove Marengi home on his first of two RBI singles to give the Pioneers a 2-0 advantage.

After the bats on both sides went quiet the Hornets cut the lead in half in the bottom of the 4th on a fielder’s choice, but Gonzalez and the defense limited the damage and set up their offense in the 5th. The Pioneers responded by putting up three runs in the 5th to regain complete control.

Matt Fiore walked to start the inning. Marengi singled Fiore to third and Gonzalez shot a single the opposite way for a 3-1 lead. Nick Giammarco, who also called a great game behind the plate, perfectly executed a sacrifice bunt to put runners at second and third which set up a squeeze bunt from Joe Mack who put it down perfectly to score Marengi to make it 4-1. It is that type of execution that O’Brien loves to see from his team.

“We worked on it a lot,” said O’Brien of the bunts. “Those plays don’t go unnoticed.”

Will Garofoli chipped in with an RBI single to make it 5-1 and Gonzalez did the rest, as North Reading couldn’t get another run the rest of the game. Dan Jameson had an RBI base hit to score Gonzalez in the 7th for the final run of the game.

This rivalry is always intense and Lynnfield made sure they made the most of their opportunities.

Lynnfield is now 12-3 on the season. They head to Burlington for the Brendan Grant Tournament this weekend and close out the regular season at Amesbury on Tuesday.