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Post 24 aims to improve as
season winds down
By Mike Berger
Citizen Staff
The
struggles continued last week for the Canton Post 24 American
Legion baseball team, which lost four consecutive games to fall
to 3-12-3 overall.
Two of those
losses were to the undefeated team from Walpole, which is now
19-0. The first game was competitive early on before Canton fell
8-3, but the second game was all Walpole, with the score
reaching 16-0 before the game was called. Canton also suffered
losses to Westwood 8-5 and Foxboro 9-2.
Part of the
problem, according to team captains Ryan Melaugh and Charlie
Beshwaty, is that the team gets good pitching but the defense
has some lapses, or the team has good hitting but not enough
pitching. The team has also had a tough schedule with two
stretches of several back-to-back games, which has thinned out
the number of eligible pitchers.
With just
one week left to play, both captains agreed that the team’s goal
is to improve its record and get more playing experience. Both
Melaugh and Beshwaty said they expect the team to be much better
next year as most of the current roster will still be eligible
to play.
To Canton’s
credit, in the first Walpole game, the team hung in until the
seventh inning, only trailing 4-3 as Nate Fishman pitched well
against a tough hitting team. Leading the Canton attack were
Beshwaty and Bryan Rooney with two hits each, and Melaugh, who
had a hit and drove in a runner.
In the
Westwood game, Canton held a 5-3 lead going into the bottom of
the sixth inning, but a three-run homerun in the seventh inning
was enough to give Westwood the win.
In the
Foxboro game, Dave Roberto pitched well into the fourth inning,
giving up one unearned run, until he got into trouble and
allowed five runs to a good hitting Foxboro team. Canton got one
run back in the bottom of the fifth on a Fishman bunt single, a
stolen base and a Gary Powers RBI single; but Foxboro got two
more runs in the sixth and seventh innings to up the lead to
9-1. Rooney’s single knocked in Mike White, who had hustled to
second base for a double, for Canton’s second
run.
July 17, 2008
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