Post 24 reaches south sectional tourney

The Canton American Legion Post 24 baseball team continued its Cinderella summer, knocking off Foxboro 3-0 in the District 6 playoffs last week to advance to the south sectional tournament for the first time in team history.

Canton was one of only five teams in the 18-team district to reach the double-elimination tournament, and while they lost Sunday’s opener to Brockton 6-0, they rebounded in a big way on Monday with a 16-6 win over Easton — the first-place team from District 9 North.

The victory propelled Canton into the next round, where the team was due to face either Brockton or Walpole in a do-or-die showdown on Tuesday, July 30, at Rockland Stadium. The winner of that game would then move on to the Bracket A finals scheduled for Tuesday night, also in Rockland.

Win or lose, Canton has already far exceeded expectations under head coach Greg Lyons and assistant coaches Al Jackson and Walter Mann, posting its best regular-season record in several years (13-11) along with a 2-1 postseason mark to date.

That includes an upset win over Foxboro, which finished second in District 6 West with a record of 18-6.

Originally scheduled as a three-game series, last week’s matchup turned into a one-game playoff due to consecutive rainouts — and Canton made it count, winning 3-0 behind a stellar pitching performance from Jake Fishman.

Despite a brutal schedule over the previous two weeks that had the team playing almost every day, the Canton coaches decided to rest Fishman for a week and the Sharon native was superb, scattering three hits while racking up nine strikeouts and zero walks. After the game, the Canton coaches agreed that it was Fishman’s best game of the season.

Offensively, the team was led by the hot-hitting Pat Vartanian, who drove in the last two runs of the game with a homerun in the fourth inning. Fishman also helped his own cause with an RBI groundout in the top of the first, scoring Matt Shaffer, who was hit by a pitch, went to second on a Kevin O’Brien bunt and advanced to third on a Drew Blake fly-out.

“Great pitching, timely hitting, and good defense, that’s how it went tonight,” said an elated Lyons after the game.

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Posted by Canton Citizen on Aug 1 2013. Filed under Beyond CHS, Sports. Both comments and pings are currently closed.