Andre Chiefs

Overall Record: 29-9 (Regular Season 24-6,1st, Playoffs 5-3)
Winning Percentage: .763
Home: 16-4 (Tufts 4-1, Maplewood 12-3)
Away:  13-5

vs. Opponents
Arlington Trojans  4-1
Lexington Blue Sox 4-5
Melrose Americans 4-1
Mooney Dental 4-0
Reading Bulldogs 6-1
Wakefield Merchants 4-0
Watertown Reds 3-1

By Bruce Tillman 

Malden, MA- The Lexington Blue Sox took Game Five of the Intercity League Championship Series, beating the Chiefs 7-2 at Maplewood Park on Sunday night. With the win, Lexington reclaims the ICL crown that the Chiefs took from them in five games last season.

The Chiefs and Blue Sox have now played 15 championship series games in the last three seasons with the Blue Sox holding a narrow 8-7 edge in the games played.

The Sox took a 1-0 lead in the top of the third inning when Dave Ahern hit a solo homer to left off Chiefs’ starter Mike DiCato.

Lexington added four more runs in the fourth against DiCato and reliever Tim Dunphy. Steve Gath walked, Ahern singled, Jeff Vigurs drew another walk. and Josh Klimkiewicz delivered Gath with a sacrifice fly to make it 2-0. Dunphy replaced DiCato to face a couple of left-handers. Tom Haugh then lined a single to right scoring Ahern and Tom McKenna reached on an infield single scoring Vigurs to increase the lead to 4-0. Ross Curley’s double down the left field line scored Haugh to jump the margin to 5-0.

Klimkiewicz’s two run homer gave the Blue Sox a 7-0 lead in the fifth inning.  

The Chiefs scored a single run in the bottom of the fifth on singles from Nick Leva, Tony Serino and Tony Deshler, and a sacrifice fly from Juan Portes.

Nate Witkowski hit a solo home run to centerfield in the bottom of the sixth to account for the 7-2 final.

Drew Brzozowski went the distance to get the win while DiCato took the loss going 3.1 innings.

Both the Chiefs and Blue Sox each had seven hits in the game. The Blue Sox made the most of their opportunities while the Chiefs left six men on base.

The Chiefs conclude the season with the 2013 Intercity League’s regular season pennant and an overall final record of 29-9.

By Bruce Tillman 

Lexington, MA- They called on the ace to get them back home.

And for the umpteenth time in his long Intercity League career Jared Freni answered.

Working on three days rest, after winning the series opener on Monday night 4-2, Freni turned in probably his best, and certainly most gutsy effort of the season, in what has been a summer full of memorable performances by the right-hander.

In one of the quickest ICL championship games ever played, Freni hooked horns with former Boston College standout Hunter Gordon in the Chiefs “win or go home” Game Four of the annual late summer showcase.

The result was a seat squirming 1-0 win for the defending champions that sends the series back to Malden Catholic on Sunday night for a winner take all Game Five at 8:00 PM.

This was a text book pitching clinic by both Freni and Gordon, who allowed just five hits between them, in a game that took all of a one hour and fourteen minutes to complete. If not for former Brandeis star and Chiefs’ veteran Tony Deshler’s sixth inning RBI single, the two teams may be still playing on Saturday morning. The two pitchers were just that good.

Gordon dispatched the Chiefs in the top the first and Lexington mounted their best scoring chance in the bottom of the inning. After Ross Curley grounded to Juan Portes for the first out, former Chicago Cub farmhand and Bryant University catcher Jeff Vigurs drilled a 3-1 Freni fastball into the left-centerfield gap for a standup triple. With the Chiefs infield drawn in, Freni recorded a mega strikeout of Steve Gath and then got Game Three hero Dan Graham to bounce to Mike Barbati at second base.

That was it in the scoring opportunity department for the next four innings as the game moved along at an amazingly rapid pace.

Freni proceeded to retire seven Blue Sox in a row before hitting Gath with a 3-1 pitch with one out in the bottom of the fourth. He left Gath stranded when he struck out Graham and Dave Ahern in succession to end the inning.

Gordon was equally as good, facing the minimum 15 batters through the first five innings. The only baserunner the Chiefs had was a leadoff single by Tony Serino in the top of the fourth inning. Serino was promptly erased when Portes grounded into a 4-6-3 doubleplay.

Paul Yankopoulos got things going in the Chiefs’ game deciding sixth inning when he led off with a single to center. Barbati bunted his sacrifice attempt a bit too hard and Gordon pounced off the mound and gunned Yanakopoulos out at second. Gordon then retired Nick Leva on a fly ball before Serino reached on the only miscue of the game, when Gath kicked his grounder, putting runners at first and second with two outs. Deshler then came up huge when he drilled a 1-0 Gordon pitch to left for a single. Ahern put a charge on the ball and threw a strike to Vigurs at the plate with the ball beating the oncoming Barbati by a solid two steps. Vigurs applied the tag but in the slide/semi-collision, the ball somehow squirted loose. Barbati was called out, then safe, when the ball dropped between he and Vigurs. Lexington manager Rick DeAngelis protested the call feeling that Vigurs had held the ball long enough to have recorded the out. In the ensuing and animated discussion, the veteran skipper was ejected by home plate umpire Dan Henry. When order was restored, the Chiefs still had an opportunity to add to their 1-0 lead with Serino now standing at third and Deshler at first. Gordon stayed tough and kept it a one run game when he got Portes to line out to left to end the inning.

Freni protected the slim lead in the bottom of the sixth when he got Dan Capra on a dribbler in front of the plate with catcher Leva throwing him out, Curley to ground out to Barbati, and Vigurs to bounce to Peter Copa, unassisted at first.

Copa led off the Chiefs’ seventh with an infield single between third and short. Mike Andre then popped up his sacrifice bunt attempt for the first out before Gordon sent the game to the bottom of the seventh, getting Bentley’s Nate Witkowski to hit into a Joe Eramo to Gath to Tommy Haugh 4-6-3 doupleplay.

Yanakopoulos ran down Gath’s fly in right for the first out of the seventh. The Blue Sox then got the tying run on base when Freni walked Graham on a full count fastball. Ahern followed with a grounder to Barbati at second who flipped to Portes to force Graham but with no chance of turning a doubleplay. With the count 1-2 to Haugh, Ahern stole second and was representing the tying run. Barbati then came up with the defensive play of the game when he went far to his right to snag Haugh’s grounder and was able to throw him out at first by a step to end the game.

Freni won his third straight post-season decision to go along with a perfect 10-0 mark in the regular season. The former Malden Catholic and UMass-Amherst standout struck out ten and allowed just Vigurs’ first inning triple.

Gordon, who concluded his career at BC this past spring, gave up just four hits, struck out three, and allowed just the sixth inning unearned run. The former Swampscott, MA star did not walk a batter and threw just 83 pitches, 57 for strikes, in his seven innings of work.

More Championship is Coverage Soon !!!!!!

By Bruce Tillman 
Malden, MA- The Chiefs were one out away and then one strike away from taking the pivotal Game Three of the ICL’s Championship Series before the Lexington Blue Sox rallied for four runs on Dan Graham’s two out grand slam to win 5-2. With the seventh inning dramatics, the Blue Sox take a 2-1 lead in the best of five series. They can close out the Chiefs when the teams meet in Lexington on Friday at 8:00 PM.

Blue Sox ace Matt Karis and the Chiefs’ Matt DiCato engaged in an old fashioned pitcher’s duel until Lexington finally broke through for a run in the top of the fifth inning. Tommy Haugh led off with a single and was sacrificed to second on a bunt from Tom McKenna. DiCato struck out Ross Curley for the second out of the inning before Jeff Vigurs delivered Haugh with the first run of the night when he drilled a double to right-center.

The Chiefs came back to tie it up in the bottom of the fifth when Paul Yanakopoulos led off with a gap double to left-center and was sacrificed to third by Matt Boleski. Nick Leva then hit an RBI fielder’s choice grounder into the shortstop hole to Steve Gath. Gath threw Leva out at first as Yanakopuoulos read the play perfectly and slid across the plate with the tying run.

The Chiefs came up with a little two out magic in the bottom of the sixth to take a 2-1 lead. After Deshler and Portes both grounded out, Peter Copa laced a double to right-center and Rob Machado came on to run for him. Mike Andre then gave the Chiefs the lead when he doubled to left to easily score Machado. Chad Conner pinch ran for Andre as Nate Witkowski came to the plate. Witkowski hit a little chopper in front of the mound that Karis fielded and threw a bit high to first. Conner never stopped running but was gunned out on a close play at the plate, as Vigurs applied the tag to end the inning.

The seventh inning began harmlessly enough as Haugh flew out to Tony Deshler in left and DiCato struck out McKenna swinging. The trouble began when DiCato hit Curley with the first pitch of his at bat. Vigurs was next and he a high liner toward third baseman Witkowski. Witkowski leaped and got a glove on the ball preventing it from going into left field. With runners at first and second with two outs, DiCato went to a 2-2 count on Gath when a close pitch was called ball three. Gath drew a walk on the next pitch to load the bases for Graham. Graham swung and missed the first pitch before he sent the next DiCato offering over the right-center field fence for a grand slam to give the Blue Sox a 5-2 lead.

The Chiefs didn’t go quietly in the bottom of the seventh as they tried to make some two out noise of their own. Karis struck out Yanakopoulos to lead off the inning and then got Matt Boleski on a grounder to Gath at shortstop. In ironically similar fashion to the top of the seventh, Karis kept the Chiefs alive when he plunked Leva with an 0-2 pitch. Tony Serino then reached on an infield single and Deshler drilled a single to center to load the bases and bring the winning run to the plate in Juan Portes. Karis got Portes to hit a grounder to McKenna at second to end the game and send the Blue Sox home with the win.

Andre, (10-20, .500) in the playoffs, and Yankopoulos (6-17, .353), led the Chiefs at the plate with a double and single each. Serino, who is 7 for 19, and hitting at a postseason clip of .368, added three singles.

Karis picked up the win despite allowing ten hits. He struck out two, walked one, and hit a batter. DiCato surrendered eight hits, struck out five, walked two, and also hit a batter.

If they Chiefs win Game Four on Friday, the deciding Game Five will be played at Maplewood on Sunday night at 8:00 PM.