Fox, Pittsfield 10s Pull Away Late Against Great Barrington
PITTSFIELD, Mass. – After spreading the wealth a little among PIttsfield’s pitching corps in its first three tournament games, 10-year-old All-Stars coach Jack Chevalier kept the ball in Mason Fox’s hands all day on Saturday.
And Fox delivered in a 16-1, four-inning win over Great Barrington to open the best-of-three Don Gleason District 1 Tournament championship final at Deming Park.
Chase Albano went 3-for-3 with a double to pace Pittsfield’s offense, which put the game away with an eight-run fourth inning.
Pittsfield, which went 3-0 in pool play in the four-team tournament, can clinch the district title and a trip to the sectional tournament on Sunday afternoon when it hosts Great Barrington at 4 p.m.
Fox finished Saturday with six strikeouts and two walks in the complete-game win ended via the run rule after four.
“I went into today saying, I want to get somebody I can just use,” Chevalier said of his approach to the pitching staff. “We’ve proved we have pitching. Our pitching is pretty deep. I have a lot of guys who can throw.
“I figured, if somebody is on, I’m letting them go. And Mason was on. So that’s how we went with it.”
Fox struck out the side in bottom of the first for the designated visitors playing in their home city.
He also took the game into his hands in the fourth, closing the contest with two comebackers to the mound wrapped around his sixth K of the afternoon.
His one hiccup came up in the second, when GB strung together three hits to make it a 3-1 game at the time.
Satchel Fisher led off with a single and moved up when Luke Saupe reached on a bunt. Zeke McLaughlin worked a walk with one out, and the bases were loaded with two out when Owen Slater singled to left to drive in Fisher.
GB starter Cooper Paul, meanwhile, limited damage in the early going.
Hector Reyes-Colon’s RBI double keyed a three-run first for Pittsfield. In the second, Paul was able to pitch around a hit-batter, ending the inning with a strikeout to strand a runner on third base.
Pittsfield made the most of its runners one inning later.
Fox doubled in a run, Myles Morrison Gould drove in a run with a single up the middle, and Shaun Boehm hit a two-run triple to key a five-run rally that gave Pittsfield an 8-1 lead.
In the fourth, Pittsfield batted around, using doubles from Brody Hamilton, Carmelo Coco and Fox in an eight-run inning to put the game away.
Although it ended up as Pittsfield’s fourth run-rule game of the tournament, the top seed got a bit of a wakeup call from GB in the first two innings.
“I wasn’t really excited about a 3-1 lead,” Chevalier said. “Not the way we’ve been scoring. These guys were kind of holding us. It felt good to explode [in the third and fourth innings].
“Like I keep preaching to ‘em, don’t get used to [run-rule wins], because all the way through the state, it won’t be like this. I’m glad at least for a couple of innings, those guys let us know they were in the game. It kind of got my boys’ attention.”
