Wicked Local Sports News

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Summer 2010 has proven to be hot, but no place is hotter than the Center Pool these days! 

The Walpole Swim Team led by Cheryl Cavanaugh is undefeated in their first five swim meets and hopes to lead the league by the end of July.  So far, the swim team has defeated Canton 297 to 166, Millis (new to the league) 241 to 86.  The following week they defeated Needham 213 to 105, Medfield 242 to 29, and Dedham 249 to 159. 

Results of the Canton meet: 

1^st place fly:  Colleen McDonald, Andrew Gubanov, Kelly Fogarty, Bobby Burke, Danielle Sauve, and Jenna Harrop.  2^nd place fly:  Ryan Campbell, Caitlin Korsak, Catherine Erwin, Andrew Drogan, and Liam Flaherty.  3^rd place fly:  David Conroy, Sam Lynch, Leah Erwin, and Erin Myers.

1^st place free:  Andrew Gubanov, Bobby Burke, Jessica Sauve, Sam Pomer, and Matt Vandini.  2^nd place free:  Anna Smith, Tyler Ahmed, Collleen McDonald, Kyle Barry, Kelly Fogarty, Nicole Sauve, Shane Kelley, and Courtney Pomer.  3^rd place free:  Lindsay Ahmed and Joe Burke.

1^st place breast:  Bridget Abril, Matt Ferraro, Caroline Gilmore, Robert Erwin, Kirsten Wade, Tim McDonald Jessica Sauve, Shane …

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It’s been a long time since the winningest field hockey program (10 state titles) in the history of Massachusetts had a first class field to play on, but come this fall, that is about to chance.

Known for years as “the Porker Pen,” the upper field behind Walpole High School was finally slated for revitalization, which is currently taking place this summer.

One of the biggest problems the field had was being built on the hill, being fenced in so closely that the goalie nets could not be rotated as is usually done on grass fields. Rotation, on soccer and field hockey fields, allows the area on the field that gets the most activity – the goal mouth – a chance to breathe and re-grow the grass.

Unfortunately, this was not possible by the configuration of the Pen; there was not enough room to shift the playing area and allow the goalmouth a chance to revitalize itself.

Funding was made available, however, to take up the sod, re-grade and fill the area, and plant …

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Entering the season, many people weren’t sure what to make of the Walpole American Legion Post 104 baseball team’s fortunes.

A program that has been a postseason regular and finished second in the state in 2008 missed the playoffs a year ago, and Walpole High, where the squad gets the bulk of its roster from, was absent from the playoffs for just the second time in the past 32 seasons under coach Bill Tompkins.

Armed with a veteran pitching staff, however, Post 104 got back to the top of District 6 West for its third regular season title in four years and into the South sectionals, where they narrowly missed earning a third State Final Eight berth in the four years, falling 11-10 last Wednesday to host New Bedford Post 1 in Bracket B while attempting to force a decisive game in the four-team double elimination tournament.

Walpole got itself in an 11-2 hole, but scored six times in the seventh to make a game of it as Troy Salvatore and Chris Ferro each knocked in a pair to help fuel the rally. The score remained 11-8 entering …

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Once again, Walpole has enjoyed the annual summer Porker field hockey camp, which got its start under retired Hall of Fame coach Penny Calf and continues to thrive under current Walpole High Head Coach Marianne Murphy, who took the camp over 11 years ago when Calf stepped down as Porker head coach.

Numbers were down a little from last year, but not by much, an impressive feat based on the facts that the camp still is almost mainly comprised of Walpole residents (although they don’t necessarily have to be) and that the nation is still in an economic downturn.

This year’s camp brought out 118 eager young ladies, four from out of town, who spent over a week on Turco Field learning techniques from current and former Porkers, many of them now Div. 1 intercollegiate stars, playing supervised and referred games and participating in skills contests that not only offered gold, silver and bronze medals to the most polished, but also gave coaches, parents and fans a glimpse at future high school field …

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The Bee Gees have nothing on Post 104.
The boys of the local American Legion baseball team are stayin’ alive in the playoffs, thanks to today’s outstanding effort by pitcher Eric Fallon, backboned by the clutch hitting of Matt Lavanchy, Cam Hanley, Dan King and Steve King.
With their postseason backs to the wall as a result of Sunday night’s 13-3 loss to Hingham, the locals returned to Walsh Field in New Bedford to battle District 6 West rival Foxboro, also with one loss, for the right to move on.
Foxboro pulled ahead 2-1 in the top of the second, and it stayed that way until Walpole tied it at two in the bottom of the fifth on doubles by Lavanchy and Hanley.
Walpole pulled ahead 3-2 in the bottom of the sixth but Foxboro tied again in the top of the seventh. The locals iced the win with two runs in the bottom of the seventh, when brothers Dan and Steve King had back-to-back …

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   “Rain, rain, go away… come again some other…”
   Oops, too late.
   A cruel twist of fate, created by the combination of a rainstorm and a little known Little League rule, brought the Walpole American Express to a screeching halt Saturday afternoon, allowing Wellesley South, a team the locals had already beaten in round robin play, to exact revenge.
   The rain delay came Friday night when the locals had things well in hand, riding the formidable pitching of Nate Porack to a 2-0 lead.
   The rain eventually forced the tournament directors to postpone the game until Saturday at noon, in another cruel twist of fate, when the championship game was supposed to be played.
   Walpole went into Saturday’s play unbeaten and with the 2-0 lead; unfortunately, according to the rules, both starting pitchers were done. Even if the game was postponed in the second inning, both pitchers were done
   When Porack left the game after cruising through …

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   One week, when the Walpole Nationals were at bat home plate was as crowded as New York’s Grand Central Station.
   The next week, the plate looked like a deserted island.
   They say things run in cycles in baseball, and it was that cycle that stopped the Walpole Nationals. A few days after winning three straight games by mercy rule they struggled at the plate, and were eliminated by Westwood, 5-3, Friday night. It was the second win of the tourney over the Nationals by Westwood, which went on to win the district and will represent the area this weekend at the regional championships in Newton.
   “We didn’t hit the ball, that was the problem,” said Coach Gene Lavanchy. “You don’t hit, you don’t win. I guess we used them all up.”
   The Nationals gained the semifinals Thursday by beating Norwood American in a thriller.
   Norwood had a 2-0 shutout going through four innings and was on the verge of a major victory …

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   American Legion baseball teams have been discovering the last few weeks that in Walpole, two Kings can beat a full count almost every time.
   So far this postseason, in which Post 104 is now 3-1 following a do-or-die 5-3 win over Foxboro at New Bedford’s Walsh Field Tuesday afternoon, the brother act of Steve and Dan King has been a royal pain for opposing pitchers to dethrone.
   As a result, the locals are still alive in the postseason, needing to avoid another loss in this round, which would keep them home the rest of the summer.
   The Thomas H. Crowley Post dug itself quite a hole Sunday when it unraveled and lost to Hingham, 13-3; that left the locals in the do-or-die situation in the double-elimination tourney.
   However, with no room for error, the team came through Tuesday, thanks to an excellent performance by pitcher Eric Fallon and the King duo.
   The Kings started heating up toward the end of the …

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   When the Westwood Little League team opened the 2010 District 11 tournament with a 6-5 victory over the American Nationals, it apparently created a monster.
Gene Lavanchy’s team played really well in its second game but still lost, 2-0, to Wellesley North’s Jack Dolan, arguably the best 12-year-old pitcher in Massachusetts.
   The locals thus came into the last week with their backs against the wall, but certainly didn’t look it.
   Cutting a severe swath through the rest of the field in their pool, the Nationals exploded for three straight mercy-rule victories, destroying Medfield 20-1 on Wednesday, dismantling the Needham Americans by the same score Saturday, and finishing with an 11-0 rout of the Norwood Americans on Sunday.
   All three games only lasted four innings, and who knows how many more the Nationals would have scored if they played the full six.
   The wins raised the Big Red Machine’s record to 3-2, second in the pool behind 6-0 Wellesley, as well …

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   While the Walpole 15-year-old baseball team finally met its match in archrival Norwood during Thursday night’s district championship at Dedham’s Memorial Field, three other local teams kept winning.
   After winning a classic pitcher’s duel, 3-1, at Eldercare Field Tuesday night, the American Legion Post 104 team closed out a sweep of Weymouth at Stella Field by a score of 9-3.
   The victory moves the locals into the next round of play, at a site and against an opponent still yet to be determined. In a new playoff format, all teams still alive at this point will be moving to neutral sites, as opposed to the old best-2-of-3 showdowns at the home fields of the teams with the better records.
   Twelve teams from the combined tourney teams of Districts 10, 9 and 6 will be split into three sites, with four teams playing at each neutral site.
   Meanwhile, both of the local 12-year-old Little League teams moved one step closer …

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   While the hard-luck Walpole Nationals stumbled out of the starter’s gate when they started the 2010 district playoff run Monday and Tuesday, the Walpole Americans were looking like world-beaters, roaring to a 4-0 record.
   Thus far it has been quite a tourney for Coach Brian Bender’s team, getting excellent pitching, impressive fielding and timely hitting in their first week of action.
   All three were in play last Thursday when they opened with a 4-1 victory over Hopkinton, and they held steady Friday night by knocking off one of the tourney’s top teams, Wellesley South, 8-3.
   The winning streak continued after Walpole returned to action Monday evening following the Independence Day break with a crushing, 18-2 defeat of Needham, and they made it four straight with Tuesday’s 11-0 shutout of Ashland.
Walpole only played five innings in each of those two games, thanks to the mercy rule.
   Mercy is what opposing pitchers were seeking as their offerings were battered regularly by a hungry line-up. Doing the most …

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   A dramatic comeback in a game that Foxboro needed gave the Thomas H. Crowley American Legion Post baseball team a loss to end the regular season last Friday but it mattered little.
   Thanks to Walpole surging at the end of the season and Westwood suffering a couple of one-run losses, Post 104 captured the District 6 West league title and is back in a place it’s very used to: the postseason.
   The loss ended Walpole’s season at 12-6, a half game and a point ahead of second-place Franklin, which used its own hot streak and Westwood’s late swoon to overtake Post 320.
   Foxboro made out well also, using the win over Walpole to sneak in as the final playoff seed.
   The locals actually clinched the title with a 6-5 win over Norfolk home at Eldercare Field the previous Tuesday.
   Like Foxboro Norfolk needed the game to get in, but Walpole was not only trying to nail down the title, but wanted …