Westford Willows Fall to Lunenburg Phillies at Home, 2-1

While the jury is still out on whether Thursday night’s contest in Littleton was critical to the Westford Willows’ season, but it’s hard to argue that they should have come away with more than what they left with.

In the end, the Willows fell 2-1 at home to the Lunenburg Phillies in Central New England Baseball Association action, dropping to 11-12 on the year and seven wins behind the league leading Clinton 76ers with only 11 games left to play.

Despite the result, for much of the evening it appeared that the Willows would come out ahead.  

At the plate, Westford first blood in the fourth when Westford native and Southern New Hampshire Ryan Thompson came home from second off a single from St. Anselm College’s Dan Lagasse. Meanwhile on the mound, Chelmsford native Kyle O’Neil limited the Phillies to only five base runners in the first five innings, two of who were caught stealing.

But the Phillies were able to tie things up in the sixth when Fitchburg State's Andy Ruth brought home leadoff man Will Rebman to even things up at one apiece.

Player/manager and Andy's father Joe Ruth nearly built on that momentum in the seventh, nearly bringing home UMass Dartmouth’s Steve LaJoie from third in a walk-off pinch hit, but crossed signals left LaJoie stranded and Ruth visibly frustrated.

“I was trying to get off a suicide squeeze, and have (LaJoie) come in from third,” said Ruth. “But usually I’m giving signals from the third base line. Being at the plate got me distracted.”

The Willows went down in order in the bottom of the seventh to send the game to extra innings and from there Rebman was able come home once again thanks to Andy Ruth's second RBI of the night.

For the Phillies, the win was punctuated thanks to Gilman’s pair of RBIs and Rebman’s four hits and two stolen bases, helping lift a cloud off Lunenburg’s recent offensive woes.

“Up until the sixth we had gone 30 innings without a run and we had a really tough time scoring against Westford the last time we were here,” said Ruth, who called the two RBIs a belated Father's Day present. “I can’t say this was a significant win since all the teams in the league have quality players, but it definitely felt good to get our groove back.”

On the other side of the diamond, there was an obvious sense of frustration at the result as Willows manager Brian Thompson felt in many ways this game was symbolic of his squad’s season to date.

“I’m not happy. In the fourth we got five hits but only one run, you need at least two or three runs when you get five hits in an inning,” said Thompson. “It’s been all the little things this season, and it was again tonight with things like not getting caught stealing and executing on sacrifice bunts. We should have won, but we just didn’t pay good enough attention to the little things.”

With the win, Lunenburg climbed to 12-6-3, putting them in a tie with Ronnie’s of Worcester at 2 ½ games behind the league lead while Westford will aim to bounce back tonight at 6 as they face the Keene Blue Jays at Franklin Pierce University in Rindge, New Hampshire.