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Local Town Pages www.norwoodtownnews.com
May 1, 2011
Norwood Has Warm Bats In Cold April BY TIM DAVIS The Norwood High baseball season kicked off the season in the blistery cold damp days of April with an opening day loss to Newton North where the boys in blue had a woeful first inning before dropping the game 12-4. But just as the cold days of April give way to the sunny days of May (hopefully) the Mustangs baseball team turned the corner in their play this past April Vacation and has improved to 3-2 overall. The boys beat Mansfield 3-2, played highly ranked Xaverian tough, just falling 4-2 and then came from behind twice in defeating Milton and Foxboro. “We put a bunch of hits together, and we’ve been hitting the ball,” commented manager James Sweeney. In Norwood’s last two wins, the Mustangs came back from two four run deficits to beat Milton 74, and Foxboro 14-8. Against highly touted Xaverian, Norwood got a great pitching performance from James Bussiere. The ace Bussiere held the hot Hawk bats scoreless until the third when Xaverian strung four to five hits together for their four runs. “We played very well,” said Sweeney, “It was a solid game.” In the Foxboro game, the Mustangs fought off an early deficit of 6-2, to manufacture together four runs in the second, to tie the game. “It wasn’t how we drew it up in the first couple of innings,” said Sweeney
The Mustangs did answer in the bottom of the second when Pete Kelly, Jordan Davis and Anthony Periello knocked in some key runs. Kelly singled home Austin Glaser for the first run while Davis doubled in Mark Saulnier for another. Periello added a double of his own to record the tying runs. The rest of the game was left up to relief pitcher Sean O’Neil, the junior captain who struggled with the first couple of batters he faced eventually settled down to get the win. “Just focused on throwing strikes and let the defense play behind me,” said O’Neil who went 6 innings, giving up seven hits, three runs, while striking out five. “Once he got in a groove and we got some hits then the game started to turn our way,” said Sweeney. The Mustangs put pressure on the Foxboro defense by being aggressive on the base paths, stealing four bases for the game, and advancing on several passed balls and wild pitches to go along with their fifteen hits. “We tried to put some pressure on them defensively and to put runners in scoring position and it worked out, we were able to knock home some runs,” added Sweeney. Former CM and Stonehill standout Billy Sittig who is now the head coach at Foxboro, commented, “We didn’t make enough plays in the field, to beat a team like this.”
Little League Upbeat Despite Rainout BY TIM DAVIS The Norwood Little League Parade and Opening Day festivities were canceled on April 23rd making only a minor blemish for what hopes to be an exciting 59th year of Little League baseball in Norwood. “It’s incredible how the community, parents and businesses are all behind us,” commented Norwood Little League chairman Phil Albert, “It was unfortunate we looked at the weather all day yesterday, Mike (Doliner) the President of Norwood Little League woke me up at 5:30 in the morning, and said what are we going to do?” The decision to cancel the parade was due to an extended forecast of rain throughout Saturday morning and afternoon that left everyone with the league scrambling for cover. The word was announced at 8 a.m. via the Norwood LL website
that the parade was canceled and that all teams could report to Coakley Middle School for team photos. “It usually just a great day,” commented LL parent Stephen McFarland whose son Michael was suited up in the gym awaiting team photos. Mcfarland who has had two sons go through the LL program said, “They really enjoyed it over the years and had a great experience.” Community service and community involvement is a big part of what the little league stands for as fifty or so volunteers got together a few weeks ago to clean up the fields in order for the season to get underway. Norwood Little League has as many as 250 – 300 volunteers within their program in the town alone. And that does not include all the parental support that goes along with supporting a program
of this magnitude. The program supports fifty-one teams at seven different levels: from T-Ball, to instructional league, to coach’s pitch to the majors. This year Norwood LL has merged with Babe Ruth Softball to support the growing interest in the sport. Recently the Norwood High Softball team hosted a clinic for girl’s ages 8-12 during April vacation, which was well attended. Norwood LL fundraiser this year involves selling sponsor cards where discounts will be honored for over twenty businesses in the town of Norwood. Little League mom Lori Babineau added, “My son Eric has been in little league for several years and its been a great program. Today is a downer but we will get it back.”