American Legion: Medford Post 45 in Winner's Bracket of Chairman’s Cup

In life, there are two sides to every story, and, in baseball, that rings true as well, where two coaches usually have different viewpoints. Tuesday night at Concord’s Emerson Field, there were two stories in Medford Post 45’s 9-3 victory over Concord Post 158.

In the bottom of sixth inning, with No. 9 Concord Post 158 hosting No. 8 Medford Post 45 in the opening round of the American Legion District 5 2011 Chairman’s Cup, Medford’s James McConville appeared to have called a timeout while at the plate, in which the umpire allowed.

Story No. 1: Concord coach John Morrissey believed the call to be unfair, saying that McConville called a timeout while Concord pitcher Brandon Napolitano was already delivering to the plate.

“The batter called timeout when our pitcher was well through the wind-up,” Morrissey said. “That’s a wrong call on (the umpire’s) part.”

Napolitano then had some choice words for the umpire and was consequently ejected out of the game. But, Morrissey said he did agree with the umpire’s decision in his pitcher’s removal, as Napolitano was in the wrong for his behavior.

Story No. 2: Medford coach Ryan Kozul believed the call wasn’t anything to be concerned about.

“Our batter had called timeout and (Morrissey) felt that he had called it too late,” Kozul said. “It was a close call. I don’t think it was anything to get too upset about. I was more concerned that my guys were going to react afterwards. They were fine. I called them over.

“It was an unfortunate situation,” Kozul continued, “but I didn’t want it to escalate any further. With the rules in this league, if you get kicked out you miss the next game and we have a big game tomorrow, so it definitely wasn’t worth retaliating or anything like that.”

With Napolitano out and Gibson Holland on the mound now for Concord, the game continued on with McConville back at the plate. But the inning quickly ended as McConville struck out and Medford earned two more outs.

In the top of the seventh, with Concord down by six runs, it was Post 158’s final chance to put more runs on the scoreboard, but Medford pitcher Chris Salvati recorded the final three outs to finish the game and place his team in the winners’ bracket of the double-elimination tournament.

“It’s always tough to beat a team twice, especially in this league,” Kozul said. “I think it was just; we beat them 8-1 (June 21), but it was a very close game, it was 1-0 late. (Today) we just had to keep our focus. We’d been hitting the ball really well and we hit the ball well again today. It was just focus and we did a good job of that.”

In the bottom of the first, Medford pulled ahead with a 2-0 lead against Napolitano. Paul Covelle ran from third before the pitch was thrown, stealing home, and the second run was scored on a wild pitch.

In the top of the second, Concord made it a 2-1 game against Salvati when Derrick Amodei hit a homer with just one out.

The bottom of the third hurt Concord and Napolitano, as Medford added four runs, taking a 6-1 advantage. Pat Duffy’s single to center field brought home a run. Then, with two outs, McConville scored on Kyle Heath’s double to center field and John Lavoie’s single scored Duffy and Heath.

Not giving up, Concord scored twice in the bottom of the third, now down by just three at 6-3. Michael Woo’s center field single drove home Jackson Forelli from second, and Michael Taylor scored on Andrew Della Volpe’s hit. But, those were the final runs Concord scored.

Medford inched closer to their win in the bottom of the fifth when Lavoie’s single brought home a run from third. Post 45 then added one final run in the bottom of the sixth against Napolitano, with Medford hitting a homerun to left field to bring two across the plate, before Napolitano’s ejection.

“It was little more exciting than I wanted it to be,” Kozul said. “They made me sweat it out the whole game.

“We got a big game tomorrow, we’re playing Billerica,” continued Kozul. “They’re actually the only team in our half of the bracket that we lost to all year and we were shorthanded. So we’re looking forward to getting back up there.

“They’re the number one seed and if we win tomorrow we play a team we already beat in the semifinals, so we’ve got a good opportunity to win this whole tournament after an up-and-down year.”