Those who follow sports know momentum often carries over from one game to another. But those who know baseball understand momentum isn’t nearly as important as the next contest’s starting pitcher.

Salem American’s 8- and 9- year-old Little League all-stars, 11-2 losers in game one of the best-of-three state championship, rebounded and took a 14- 5 lead into the final inning of game two. Portsmouth scored seven runs before American recorded the final out, forcing a third and deciding contest on Sunday, July 27, in Belmont. There, Salem’s Jake Dufton pitched 3 1/3 innings of nearly shutdown ball, helping his team take a 5-1 lead in the rubber match.

“We’ve faced (Dufton) before, but he was using a change up, and he had some of our bigger guys off balance,” said Portsmouth coach Joe Arsenault. “He pitched a great game. He did everything he had to do to keep his team in it, and they were in it right to the end, for sure.”

Still, Portsmouth stormed back to take an 8-5 lead in the bottom of the fourth, before the local all-stars, behind the bats of Matt Vartanian, Matt Meisner, Max Greeley, Johnny Cail and Jake Sylvester, proved equally resilient, knotting the contest in the top of the fifth.

A Portsmouth run in the bottom of fifth and two stranded Salem runners in the top of the sixth relegated American to second place, 9-8.

“They’re a very disciplined team over there,” said Arsenault. “They make you pitch, and when your pitchers start to struggle, they’re not going to start chasing bad pitches. They hurt our pitching, I mean we climbed in the pitch counts … but in baseball, usually the team that hits the ball more wins … and unfortunately only one team gets to run around the field with the banner.”

That’s true, said Salem manager Fred Russo, which is why he said the final game was a fitting conclusion to both team’s runs.

“It was a great series, and this is how it should have ended. This shouldn’t have been a blowout by either team,” said Russo.

“You need to get lucky to make a run like this, too,” he added “You can have all the talent in the world and most teams can’t make a run like this, but our kids got a little lucky, and they had that mindset and that attitude that they were never going to quit.”

After being mercy-ruled in their opening-round contest against Windham, the boys won nine games in a row to wear the District 1 crown.

Even then, few people gave them much of a chance against Portsmouth, a perennial District 2 and state power in all age groups.

Yet there they were, one shot away from slaying Goliath.

“I don’t think people thought we were the best Salem team in the tournament to start, and we made our run and I think we surprised a lot of teams,” said Russo. “I don’t think these Portsmouth guys were surprised by us. I think they were expecting a battle.”

Arsenault, however, admitted his players may have taken Salem lightly after the first game blowout.

“Even though they say they won’t, even though the coaches told them not to, parents plan parties. They hear the murmurs. They know they beat the team by 10 … What they don’t realize is Windham beat them by 10, and then they 10-runned Windham,” he said. “Today, nobody was taking anything for granted. They knew today was the last day of baseball, regardless.”

Team notes

Each and every player contributed with either their bat, their glove or their arm, said Russo.

Jake Sylvester, Johnny Cail, Max Greeley, Matt Meisner, Matt Vartanian, Jake Pappalardo, Nick Shumski, Anthony Russo, Kyle Nagri, Connor Greenfield, James Dohil and Jake Dufton had a hand in Salem’s run.

Coaches Bryan Sylvester, Stan Dogil and Chris Greeley, added Russo, put in countless hours of patience and dedication.