East Lyme forces Waterford's hand in Babe Ruth 14 tournament
Waterford — Chris Holloway, the coach, was left to shake his head and smile Wednesday night. Not even the most ardent East Lyme optimist could have expected this.
Picture it: East Lyme vs. Waterford. Time-honored rivalry. This time in the championship round of the District 6 Babe Ruth 14 baseball tournament. At the Waterford Babe Ruth Field.
And the mercy rule was applied.
East Lyme 12, Waterford 0 in six innings, setting today’s winner-take-all final at 5:30 p.m.
“Baseball is a funny game sometimes,” Holloway said. “But it helps with great pitching, timely hitting and clean defense.”
East Lyme defeated Waterford to win the district last summer. Waterford defeated East Lyme in the state tournament, en route to the Babe Ruth 13 World Series. They are 1-1 in this tournament. All of which makes the lopsided score so surprising.
“We didn’t show up,” Waterford coach Dan Santos said. “From the minute they walked into the dugout and watching them take infield/outfield, we could tell.”
After the game, Santos and coaches Matt Johnson and Lucas Beaney took their team as far as they could into the outfield, by the 330-foot sign. It appeared to be more of a monologue than a dialogue.
Meanwhile, the East Lyme kids beamed. And why not?
“Well,” Holloway said, “we haven’t won anything yet.”
But they won Wednesday thanks in part to pitcher Jake Schelkly, who threw more than 50 strikes in his 70-pitch complete game. He allowed three hits and one walk. With no strikeouts.
“He’s always around the zone,” Holloway said. “Very efficient.”
East Lyme also used Waterford’s hospitality. Think the “Twelve Days of Christmas.” Seven bases on balls … six stolen bases … five wild pitches … four errors … three wild pitches.
Eric Patterson’s RBI single began the scoring in the second inning before his two-run double finished it in the sixth. Liam Holloway had two hits and was on base three times and Jacob Diaz had two hits as well.
Devin Ostrowski and Matt Malcom stole two bases apiece.
Dylan Bosco had two hits for Waterford.
“When we came into this tournament, the one thing we focused on was not beating ourselves,” Chris Holloway said. “If we played Waterford, great. If not, that’s fine, too. But we just wanted to keep it clean.”
His team has its chance to repeat tonight.
And in the other dugout …
“We said to the kids, ‘do you want this to be a fun summer or not?’” Santos said. “The fact that they embarrassed us on our home field should mean something to you. They left here pretty pumped up about (today).”
m.dimauro@theday.com
Twitter: @BCgenius
Comment threads are monitored for 48 hours after publication and then closed.