Lynnfield Baseball falls at North Reading

NORTH READING – Depending on what team you were rooting for, North Reading pitcher Riley Warnock was either the best or worst player on the field. For Hornets fans, his five strikeouts on the mound and three hits at the plate elicited many cheers. For Lynnfield fans, he drew hung heads and groans as he controlled the Pioneers from start to finish en route to a dominant 12-1 North Reading win yesterday afternoon.

“I knew that this team can hit the crap out of the ball so I just tried to make them hit ground balls and pop-ups,” Warnock said. “It was a good day and good win. We got into states now, so we’re happy.”

Warnock got a little help from the defense behind him as they were able to turn two double plays including one in the sixth inning to get out of a bases-loaded jam.

Warnock may have been the star on the mound, but the Hornets as a whole starred at the plate. North Reading smacked 17 hits and stole three bases. Ben Harrow cracked three hits and batted in three runs, Keith Linnane had three hits to go with a pair of RBIs, and Kyle Boucher connected on a pair of hits and an RBI.

The Hornets struck for three runs in the first inning and never let up. Lynnfield’s starting pitcher, Ben Kendrew, was lifted after 1.1 innings in favor of Chris Deheulle, after surrendering five runs. The lead grew to eight after three innings, and Warnock and the Hornets locked down the Pioneers the rest of the way.

“Today our game plan was to throw a lot of off-speed pitches because Lynnfield is known as a real good fastball-hitting team,” North Reading coach Frank Carey said. “We’ve maybe got one game this year when we’ve double digits for hits. We’re only batting .270 as a team. However, we’ve been in every single game. The defense has been super all year.”

While it was all smiles for the Hornets, it was hung heads for the Pioneers. The offense was only able to put together productive runs in small bursts and were always neutralized by Warnock and the Hornet defense.

After Lynnfield scored their lone run in the fifth to make it a 9-1 game with the bases loaded it looked as though they were about to break through, but Warnock was able to induce a pop-up from Dylan Costa to end the inning.

“I expected a better effort,” Lynnfield coach John O’Brien said. “We played really well against Pentucket and Hamilton-Wenham. Today we came out flat. I think we left 10 or 11 guys on base. We had nine hits. You can’t give up runs like that. They hit the ball, and we weren’t able to stay with them today.”

AJ Satorelli and Pete Franchi each had a pair of hits for the Pioneers. Dylan Costa scored Lynnfield’s lone run in the fifth after BJ Neil drew a walk.