Groton — The Pirates defeated the Sonics 4-0 in an Eastern Connecticut Major League baseball playdown game on Saturday morning at Washington Park.

The Pirates advance to play the regular-season champion Tides in a best-of-three playoffs series starting Monday with a doubleheader at 6 p.m.

Jake Parizo and Mike Dull each had two hits and drove in a run for the Pirates, who led 1-0 in the fourth when Parizo's sacrifice fly scored Andrew Fogarty, who had earlier singled, to make it 2-0 and Dull singled home Tim Jackson (double) to make it 3-0.

Hunter Nadeau, in relief of brother Shawn, was the winning pitcher in the combined shutout while Kyle Richards had a pair of singles for the Sonics.

Auto racing

• Oakdale's Derek Debbis powered his way to the front following a lap-10 restart and went on to win the 20-lap SK Light feature on Friday night at Stafford Motor Speedway.  It was his second win of the season. Salem's Alexander Paul finished fourth.