WESTFIELD – The Westfield National 10- and 11-year-old All-Stars suffered a tough loss Saturday afternoon at home to Longmeadow to end their chance of making the district two final, but Sunday–not 24 hours later–brought the final challenge of pool play action: an away game in 90-degree heat at Agawam.
Despite the circumstances at hand, the Nats’ offense struck from the beginning to sweep the summer two-game series with Agawam, winning 17-5 at School Street and finishing their pool play with a 3-3 record.
“For them to come out on a Sunday in 95 degrees shows a lot about them,” said Head Coach Jim Cloutier. “Everybody hit today. It was nice to get multiple people at bat and Jake Jachym set the tone with three innings.”
The National offense plated almost as many runs Sunday against Agawam as they had in their first five games combined. The team entered Sunday with 18 runs, but nearly matched their total by scoring in every inning aside from the fourth. Jimmy Cloutier led National with 5 runs batted in, hitting a pair of two-run singles in the second and third innings to fuel a pair of five-run innings.
Riley Sullivan drove in three runs of his own, while Cole Davignon, Joey Calderella and Jake Jachym drove in two runs each. Shea Byrnes and Aiden Krol also drove in a run apiece in the 17-run, 19-hit affair. After one inning at Agawam, National had scored the same number of runs as they did in the six innings during their 6-3 loss Saturday against Longmeadow
“Jimmy had a great game,” said Cloutier. “He hit the ball very well and he’s improved so much over one year, but everybody hit the ball well. It’s not like we got cheap hits. We stung the ball and they didn’t make a lot of errors out there, so we were finding holes.”
National finished the district round robin with the second fewest runs allowed, giving up 27 runs in the six games. The pitching and defense that led the Nats all summer finished on a high note, scattering eight hits and striking out 10 Agawam batters.
Jachym earned the win for National, pitching three innings of five-hit, four-run baseball. Calderella pitched the final three innings of relief, striking out seven and allowing a single run. All but two of Calderella’s recorded outs came via the strikeout.
“They know it’s hot and they came in and threw strikes,” said Cloutier. “If you can throw the ball over the plate, you’re going to get outs at this level. When you start walking kids in this heat and the defense is standing around, they tend to make errors. It’s good that they got out there and pounded the (strike) zone. They pitched great for us.”
