Tahanto baseball graduates meet as Little League managers
NORTHBORO - Two former high school teammates squared off as managers in the Northboro 10-year-old Little League tournament last Friday night.
Matt Rice, who graduated from Tahanto Regional High School (TRHS) in 1992, and Brian Mariani, a 1994 TRHS graduate, managed Boylston/West Boylston and Sterling, respectively. Both Rice and Mariani played baseball for longtime Tahanto coach Neil Greenwald.
On Friday, Rice took home bragging rights, as the Boylston/West Boylston All-Stars took a 10-4 decision from the Sterling All-Stars at Lower Memorial Field in the first game of tournament pool play.
There were six teams in the Northboro 10-year-old tournament this summer. In addition to Boylston/West Boylston, the other tournament teams were Uxbridge, Northboro, Westboro and Shrewsbury. Each team was guaranteed four games in the tournament, which finished on Sunday night.
Due to the teams playing four games in three days, the managers used several pitchers in last Friday's contest. The frequent pitching changes were made in order to limit the number of pitches thrown by each hurler.
Toeing the rubber for Boylston/West Boylston were Riley Morgan, Ryan Walton, Shane Gardiner, Nick Pino and Andrew Brown. Taking the mound for Sterling were Justin Mariani, Nick Ewing, Ben Marcoulier, Brett Lucht, Lucas LaHaye and Noah Pavlowich.
Boylston/West Boylston drew first blood with a solo run in the top of the first inning.
With two outs, Gardiner singled to center field. A single by Andrew Brown and walks to Jackson Rice and Wesley Haynes forced a run home.
Sterling knotted the score at 1 with a run in the home half of the first inning.
Justin Mariani led off with a sharp single to center field. After Justin Mariani stole second base, Marcoulier plated him with a single to left.
In the second inning, Boylston/West Boylston exploded for six runs to take a 7-1 lead, a lead it would not relinquish.
With one out, Corey Fletcher and Justin Dorval walked. Next up was Morgan, who drove in Fletcher with an infield single. After a double steal, with two outs, put the runners in scoring position, Gardiner unloaded a two-RBI double to right field.
Gardiner scored on Brown's single to center. The next batter to step to the plate was Jackson Rice, who blasted a booming RBI triple to left field. Haynes plated Rice with an RBI single to center.
Up 7-1, Boylston/West Boylston added a run in the top of the third frame on a double by Pino and a throwing error.
Trailing by seven runs, Sterling launched a comeback in the bottom of the fourth inning.
After Brendan Roy was hit by a pitch, Lucht singled to right field, putting runners at the corners. The next batter was George Eiremann and he reached first base on a fielder's choice, with a run scoring on the play.
Lucht scored on a RBI bunt single by Drew Croce. Eiremann crossed the plate on a wild pitch.
Boylston/West Boylston picked up two insurance runs in the fifth inning on a walk, an error and consecutive singles by Gardiner, Brown and Jackson Rice.
Gardiner and Brown led Boylston/West Boylston with three hits each, while Jackson Rice added two hits. The top hitter for Sterling was Justin Mariani with two hits.
There were several outstanding defensive plays made by both teams.
The defensive standouts for Boylston/West Boylston were Haynes at second base, Brown at third base and behind the plate, and Walton at shortstop.
Wearing gold gloves for Sterling were Marcoulier at second base, Lucht at third base, LaHaye in center field, Luke Patton at first base, Chet Fors in left field and Justin Mariani on the mound and at shortstop.
"It was an excellent game," Matt Rice said. "They (Sterling) came with a good team like we thought they would.
"We got great pitching tonight from our team," he said. "We were able to balance our pitch counts, and our team was able to make the defensive plays. We had a strong second inning and hit the ball hard and that gave us a little cushion.
"This is a very good tournament and Northboro does a great job," Matt Rice added.
Brian Mariani was equally pleased with his team's effort.
"I told the kids that this game came down to one inning," Brian Mariani said. "I thought it was a very competitive game. Other than that six-run inning, I thought our pitching was very good.
"We turned a nice double play in the middle, which was nice to see," he said. "We were able to keep our pitchers available for the other games and we had a little bit of a comeback in the fourth inning.
"The kids never got down, and the effort was there," Brian Mariani added. "I was proud of all of them."
