WOONSOCKET – It will be the IBPO Athletics vs. Woonsocket Tax on Monday at Ayotte Field when the city Little League championship series begins at 5:30 p.m.
The Athletics became East Woonsocket’s Major Division champions with a thrilling 10-9 victory over the Amvets Devil Rays last Wednesday night. Woonsocket Tax swept the Firefighters in two games to claim the Bernon title.
The Athletics achieved a major upset when they knocked off the regular season champion Devil Rays. The game was tied heading into the top of the seventh inning. The A’s scored three runs, two of them coming on Kevin Cabral’s timely single, and a third off the bat of David Rodrigues. Winning pitcher Victor Hunt survived a two-run homer by Jalen Evans in the bottom of the seventh.
Evans finished with two homers and six RBI for the Devil Rays. Jorge Cruz belted two homers and knocked in five runs for the A’s.
The D-Rays scored three runs in the first inning off A’s starter Brandon Rainville. Leadoff hitter Adonis Febus was hit by a pitch. Ross Burch then doubled and Evans followed with a three-run homer.
Rainville then settled down, allowing just two unearned runs over the next three innings as his team fought to get back into the game. He struck out 11 batters in five innings of work.
Cruz homered in the second inning to get the A’s offense under way. Then he hit a three-run homer in the fourth inning. A run-scoring grounder by Sam Hunt scored Diego Rosado to tie the game at 5-5 .
IBPO went ahead in the fifth inning after Victor Hunt reached with his third inning. Rainville doubled in Hunt and then scored on a wild pitch. But the Rays refused to go quietly, tying the game at 7-7 in the bottom of the sixth inning. After Jarod Vadenais reached on an error, Angel Rodriguez doubled and then Febus tied the game with a ringing single to centerfield. Febus was thrown out on a great relay from Rosado to Victor Hunt to Sam Hunt as he tried to stretch his hit into a double.