ROCKPORT— The Rockport Townies' backs are officially up against the wall in the Intertown League baseball Championship.
With a 7-5 loss to top seeded Rowley Sunday at Evan's Field, the Rams take a 2-0 lead in the series meaning Rockport needs to win each of the next three games to win their first ITL title since 2007. The Rams, on the other hand, are just a win away from their first title since 1979.
Rowley also took game one of the series 5-4 in extra innings on Saturday. Game three of the series will be played Wednesday at Eiras Park in Rowley (5:30 p.m.).
Despite the lead in the series, Rowley manager Jeff Wood has played the Townies too many times to get excited about his teams commanding lead. He saw just how good the Townies are when they are backed into a corner as they turned a 7-1 seventh inning Rowley lead into a 7-5 game.
"I'm not comfortable with any lead in Rockport because of (Evan's) Field and because of the team they have," Wood said. "We are going to have to give it everything we have to win this series, I expect Rockport to come out flying on Wednesday."
Townies manager Jeremy Spittle, on the other hand, says his team just needs to grind out one game at a time to play their way back into the series.
"I know we are going to come to play we just need to grind out a couple of wins," Spittle said. "We need to have productive at bats and play well on defense, if we do that Wednesday we will be alright."
Pitchers Nick Liguori of Rowley and Matt Sharon of Rockport cruised through the first six innings of play as the Ram's had a 4-1 lead, but the seventh inning saw the teams combine for seven runs.
Rowley appeared to have broken the game wide open in the top of the seventh when Dave Smith hit a two run homer to right center field making it 6-1. Tim Moore came around to score on a fielding error later in the inning after reaching on a double to make it 7-1.
"Those runs turned out to be huge," Wood said. "We needed almost every one of them."
The Rams appeared to be in control but the Townies battled back to make things interesting loading the bases with nobody out in the seventh setting the stage for Mike Emerson to rip a line shot into the right center field woods for a grand slam to make it 7-5. Liguori, however, retired the next three batters to close the door.
Although he got knocked around a little in the seventh, allowing more hits in that inning then he did in the rest of the game, Liguori was fantastic on the mound for the Rams as Wood called him the difference in the game for his team.
After allowing a run in the first Liguori settled down retiring 14 of the next 16 hitters he faced.
"It was tough for us to get anything going off of him today," Spittle said. "He cruised through the middle innings."
Liguori was aided by a strong first inning from the Rams as Ralph Renzulli smoked a three run shot into the right center field woods to give his team an early 3-0 lead.
"The early lead was key for us," Wood said. "Nick hasn't pitched a whole lot in the last few weeks so to pitch with an early lead made him relaxed and he was able to pound the strike zone."
Renzulli led the Rams with a pair of hits and three RBIs while reaching base in all four of his plate appearances. Smith had three runs batted in for the Rams while Tim Moore had a pair of hits. Dan Greel and Emerson powered the Townies offense with two hits each.
