Westwood Baseball Loses Big in Tournament Final

Westwood surrendered 11 runs in the fifth inning Thursday afternoon against Norwell, propelling the Clippers to their second consecutive Russell Downs Tournament Championship over Westwood, 21-11.

Norwell’s Brett Morgan, the tournament’s most valuable player, finished the day 5-6 with four runs scored and was an integral part of every Clipper rally.

For the second straight game, Westwood piled on runs early, scoring 10 in the first four innings, including six in the first. Despite managing only one first-inning hit, the Wolverines strung together their runs on six walks, a hit by pitch, a balk, and wild pitches. Sean Amaru homered in the third inning and Will Smith went yard in the fourth, giving Westwood a 10-3 edge.

On the mound, Smith tamed the Clipper offense through the first three innings allowing just one earned run but ran into trouble in the bottom of the fourth.

A six-run inning knocked Smith out of the game and trimmed the Norwell deficit to a single run.

“We’ve played a couple of games already this year that we’ve been behind big, including yesterday being down 6-2 in the second inning, but we are very confident because we know we have the lineup to score a lot of runs,” said Norwell head coach Tom Jacobs.

Westwood tried its luck with both Jake Indursky and Wednesday’s winning pitcher, Nick Henderson in the fifth but neither proved effective.

Norwell tacked on 11 more in the frame while sending 15 batters to the plate and extended its lead to 20-10. 

Westwood head coach Brian Whelan talked about his team’s late-game struggles.

“We get up and we just don’t seem to have that killer instinct," Whelan said. "You either have it or you don’t. We can’t lose focus and just have to know the situation. It’s tough, if it was easy, everyone would be doing it but it’s not an easy game.”

For Norwell, Matt Barry picked up the win after being called on in relief midway through the first inning. He pitched into the sixth and allowed four runs, but more importantly, kept Norwell in the game.

“(Barry) allowed our offense to get back in the game and pitched especially well in the fifth inning,” Jacobs said. “He got through the 3-4-5 hitters and struck out Amaru so it was a good test for him.”

Jordan Jenkens and Brendan Kennedy kept the Westwood bats cold in the final innings as neither allowed an earned run in an inning of work apiece.

Forest Lovett pitched the seventh inning for Westwood and allowed just one run.

With the loss, Westwood drops to 4-2 overall and will continue league play next week.