BY RYAN O'CONNOR
A week and a half after losing to Plymouth and nearly falling from playoff position, the Salem American Legion baseball team strung four consecutive victories together, taking hold of first place in Division A.
The top four teams in each division make the playoffs, but following the July 16 loss to Plymouth, coach John Ryan expressed reservations about his team’s postseason chances.
Six days later, with a 13-4 record and one week to play, his opinion remained unchanged.
“The level of competition is so high that the margin for error is very small,” said Ryan. “You just never know, and I need to keep my kids knowing that they need to constantly maintain their focus. I’m not always an easy coach to work with, but I keep them playing hard.”
At Rochester on Sunday, July 22, Post 63 faced one of the most dominant pitchers in the state, Kyle Davis, but the hitters scored seven runs off him, including a two-run home run by Salem’s Peter Allain, on the way to a 7-5 victory.
“We really studied Davis,” said Ryan. “That guy has shut down every team in the league, and they just couldn’t believe we got seven runs off him. We had players coming up to us after the game saying they were shocked.”
Hal Landers, also of Salem, started the game and pitched six strong innings, allowing two earned runs.
Salem’s Eric Perrault completely shut down the opposition’s offense for the final nine outs.
Prior to the defeat of Rochester, Post 63 beat Concord on the road, 23-1, and Portsmouth, 6-2.
On Friday, July 20, Concord had a chance at retribution against the locals, this time at Salem, but Post 63 handed the visitors another defeat, though the contest was much closer.
After falling behind, 3-0, Concord closed to 3-2.
In the fourth inning, however, Pelham’s James Mostone led off with a double, and Perrault knocked him in with a double to extend the lead to 4-2.
The fifth saw Windham’s Matt Delaney and Salem’s Eric Simm reach on walks before both runners advanced on a passed ball. Windham’s Brad White followed with a low liner down the left-field line, past the diving third baseman, to bring in two more runs on a base hit.
Post 63 capped its scoring in the sixth inning when Jeff Dennis walked, Allain was hit in the foot and Landers singled in Salem’s seventh run.
But Concord came back in the top of the seventh to score four runs and once again bring the deficit to one.
Perrault took the mound in the eight and prevented Concord from scoring again.
“It all depends on who they pitch. Tonight (Concord) had one of their better pitchers out there,” said Ryan. “We ended up having a tough fight. We had them, 7-2, but you can’t have the bases loaded, 0-2 counts, and throw the ball right down the plate, which is what we did. But we were lucky to have Eric Perrault come in and shut them down.”