District 3 Three-Peat for Central Coventry All-Stars

Central Coventry defeated Exeter-West Greenwich, 7-4, on Thursday night at Paine Field for their third straight District Three Major Division All-Star championship. The win automatically qualifies them for the Rhode Island Little League State Championship playoffs which begin next week in Warwick.

In a contest taking two days, starting and winning pitcher Mason Feole, along with Justin Brown in relief, still had to work hard to snuff out a late bid for a comeback win by the EWGLL All-Stars.

CCLL rocketed to a 6-0 lead in the first inning of the game that was suspended on Wednesday due to rain. And that turned out to be all the runs CCLL needed to seal the three-peat deal.

With 12 batters in all coming to the plate, leadoff batter A.J. Morris led the CCLL first inning onslaught with two doubles, his second extra-base hit driving in two runs. Also contributing were Roberto Regine with a two-run single; Colin Sutyla, RBI single and Zack Garcia, a single and run scored.

The lefty Feole started out like a ball of fire on the mound, striking out the side in the first and second innings with just 21 pitches overall, two called balls.

But there was still life for EWGLL after the rain-shortened contest on Wednesday night,

EWGLL reliever Alex Ventura took over on the second night and stifled the champions’ bats, allowing just a second-inning leadoff homer by Brown to center. The crafty righthander then proceeded to hold the champs hitless and scoreless the rest of the way.

Feole helped his cause in the third after yielding his first hit of the game, a single. He then caught a grounder, wheeled around to throw the ball to shortstop Justin Brown who zipped it to first for a crisp 1-6-3 double play.

To start the fourth, Scott Livsey hit a single up the middle and Madison D’Arezzo drew a walk, both moving up a base on a wild pitch and passed ball. That set the stage for a Tyler Lynch three-run blast that ignited the EWGLL fans. Ventura singled, but was thrown out on a heads-up play by Feole on a bunt by Dan McManus.  Then Scott Kiefer squirted in an odd bloop single that landed near second that scored McManus. Chris Soucy singled and with two runners on, Justin Brown was called in for relief of Feole (3.2 innings, 5 hits, 7 K’s, no walks).

Brown, nearly unhittable most of the tourney, squelched the rally with runners on second and third and one out, relying on his blazing fastball to strike out two straight batters on seven pitches.

Brown walked Livsey to start the fifth inning and D’Arezzo battled for seven pitches before striking out, along with the next two batters.

In the last inning, Brown issued a walk before retiring the next three batters, two on strikeouts- his sixth and seventh- with the last batter grounding out, shortstop to first to clinch the title.

For Exeter-West Greenwich, it still was a gratifying experience, making it to the district finals for the first time since 1988, and winning six of eight games. “It was a big deal for the kids and for the coaches, too,” said EWGLL head coach Adam Livsey of the achievement. “The kids responded fantastically. We knew what we were up against and we made it a contest. That wasn’t our team last night; tonight it was. Every night we had someone different deliver for us.”

The opponents also received praise from CCLL head coach, Anthony Feole. "I knew they were the team we had to beat in the districts," he said.  Alex (Ventura) plays on the AAU team I coach with a lot of our players and so he knows our hitters very well. He kept us off-balance with off-speed pitches." 

Members of the runnerup squad also included Riley Cooney, Kyle Pezzullo Ethan Moitoza, Joey Iannucelli and Adam Hernandez. Other coaches were Jay Lynch and Carl Gebler.

Other members of the CCLL championship squad include Matt Buglio, Richard Vaughn, Kyle McCann, Matt Mansour, Tyler Ferrara and Zack Najarian. Feole is assisted by Chip Regine and Kevin McManus.

Central Coventry will now face the District One champion (still undetermined) next Saturday, July 23 at 4:30 p.m. at the Warwick West Side Little League Field.

“This is an amazing and special, special team,” Feole says. “We are strong in pitching, hitting and defense. Pitching is our main strength and I think we have the best three starting pitchers around in Kyle McCann, Mason Feole and Justin Brown. Our hitting is secondary and our defense is very good, but no one has seen it tested that much yet. I feel good about our chances in the states.”

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