Homers Boost Gansett Over Central Coventry

COVENTRY -- It took a little while for the 11-year old Narragansett All-Stars to get an offensive rhythm going, but it manifested just in time to advance to the next round in the District 3 tournament.

Narragansett used a five-run fifth inning en route to a 7-1 victory over Central Coventry on Thursday in Coventry.

Tyler Pereira and Jack Lurgio each hit home runs in the explosive fifth and Chris Owens knocked a homer in the first and tallied a total of three RBI to supplement the offense.

“I thought we were just going to come out mashing,” Narragansett manager Jason Laurie said. “We’ve been practicing almost every day and working a lot on the offensive piece. Just making sure the bats are sharper because we don’t want to have them fall asleep.”

Indeed, both offenses were quiet for the first four innings. Central Coventry starter Kyle Brown kept virtually all Narragansett batters in check and starter Chris Owens went 4.1 innings, allowing three hits and striking out four.

Brown allowed two runs on three hits through the first four innings but the difficult fifth inning gave the momentum to Narragansett.

Central Coventry manager Dave Kortick thought that his team’s at-bats could have been more efficient to keep the game from getting out of reach.

“I think in the end our bats didn’t come alive,” Kortick said. “Their pitchers pitched well, I take nothing away from them, but we could have hit better and put some runs on the board. I don’t think 7-1 is an insurmountable lead. I think we could have done a little better at the plate.”

Narragansett struck out Central Coventry five times in a row at one point, and Kortick also took that into account.

“I think it’s always tough when you see a player take one looking,” Kortick said. “I’m sure they’d like to have it back but Narragansett’s pitchers did well.”

Central Coventry had a rally beginning in the third inning down 2-0 when the first three batters reached base and shortstop Matt Rickard laced a single to left to score a run. However, back-to-back force outs at home plate followed by a groundout to second base silenced Coventry’s momentum.

Narragansett totaled eight hits in the game. Owens led the offense, going 3-for-3 with three RBI, Tyler Pereira was 2-for-3 with two RBI and London Sudduth was 1-for-2 with a double. Laurie was impressed with how the home runs saved the team in the end.

“It was the big home run ball that bailed us out this game from those three guys,” Laurie said. “That was a nice surprise there.”

Central Coventry’s tournament run comes to a conclusion. Kortick overall is happy with how his team performed over these past couple of weeks.

“I expected us to go a little further -- that didn’t happen of course -- but a couple of runs here and maybe change the tempo of the game I think we could have done better,” Kortick said. “But these guys played really well. They didn’t make any errors. (We) played well on defense, we had good pitching. Narragansett hit when they needed to.”

Narragansett’s next game is scheduled for Sunday at East Greenwich High School with the first pitch at 5:30 p.m.