The run for a New England championship is over for the Capital Area Babe Ruth 15U team.
Capital Area fell 10-0 in five innings to host Pittsfield, Massachusetts in the New England regional semifinal at Wahconah Park. The team entered the day needing two victories to win the New England championship and a berth in the Babe Ruth 15U World Series, set for Aug. 12-19 in Jamestown, New York.
“If you look at our body of work, over the four games we played (during the New England tournament), we had 24 real good innings, and a couple that weren’t so good. They just happened to come today,” Capital Area coach Jason Douin said. “Unfortunately, in the prior games, we made the plays. Today we didn’t.”
Capital Area went 3-0 and was the No. 1 seed out of the A pool for the tournament, showing solid pitching and defense during the early portion of the tournament. The team beat Warwick, R.I. 5-0 on Friday. Capital Area then edged Westfield, Mass. 1-0 on Saturday. A 6-3 victory over Kingswood, New Hampshire on Sunday gave Capital Area a bye into the semifinals.
But Pittsfield jumped out to a 3-0 lead in the second inning on Tuesday and never looked back, adding seven more runs before the game ended after five innings.
Capital Area beat Sanford for the Maine state championship on July 16.
“These kids showed that central Maine young men can compete on a state level and on a New England level,” Douin said. “Defensively and pitching, we were solid all the way around.”
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