The Sports Watch for June 27 - July 2

It's Sunday, and you know what that means. It's time for the Sports Watch, the fastest three minutes in Weston Sports coming your way right now:

Well, the Weston Legion baseball team is showing some offense. With last week's 5-2 win over Reading, the locals, who won their second straight, improved their record to 3-4 and got back into playoff contention.

In its other win last week, things got tense, but Weston put out the fire. Clinging to a one-run lead in the bottom of the seventh inning, head coach Justin Miller declined calling in a relief pitcher despite Robert Charpie facing a runner on second base and just one out.

He knew his player.

Charpie forced a fly out and then sent Jonathan Barry down swinging for his 12th strikeout of the game, sealing a 4-3 victory over Somerville Post 19 at Trum Field.

“He battled out there,” Miller said. “That’s who he is. He grinds down. In intense situations, he never thinks of giving up. He throws the next pitch whether it was a bad call, a bad play in the field, or a bomb hit.”

The winning run came across moments earlier as the Wildcats scored in the top of the seventh.

With one out, Charpie slapped a single to left, and then stole second base. After Nick Neu popped out to center, Post 19 pitcher Kevin Foley intentionally walked Tom Wells (2-for-3). One of his throws was wild allowing Charpie to advance to third.

Miller elected for a little trickery once Wells reached first. As Kevin Foley was about to pitch, he sent Wells to second drawing him into a run-down. While Post 19's attention was diverted, Charpie  scurried home and scored before the throw reached.

“You know, it worked,” Miller said. “Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.”

To start the scoring, Engel crossed home in the third inning when Foley misfired to first base on a Charpie soft grounder down the line.

Post 19 responded in the bottom of the stanza as John Foley golfed a bloop single into left scoring Reed Casey.

The two teams again traded runs in the fourth inning.

During the top half, with runners on first and second, Thomas Russo smacked a single to center driving in Dean Petzing. One batter later, Noah Tocci scored on a bizarre play in which an infield fly rule was called but the runners advanced at their own peril, giving the Wildcats a 3-1 lead.

But Somerville (2-4-1) grabbed those two runs back when Kevin Foley helped his own cause with a two-run double.

Until last week, run production had been a problem for Weston. Miller hopes this victory will be a momentum builder.

“We just haven’t had timely hitting,” he said. “We’ve gotten guys on; we’ve just stranded too many runners. But when our pitchers battle and throw strikes, I think we can beat anybody. It’s just a question of getting our hitting going. Hopefully this will give us a little momentum going forward.”

Peter Shanley contributed to this report.