Wigglesworth Leads Pittsfield Back to State Little League Final Four
On Sunday, two back-to-back gems turned the tide in a 3-0 Section 1 Tournament title game win over Holden.
It was a 0-0 game, and Pittsfield had not had a baserunner in the top of the fourth when Holden used an Owen Williams double and a hit batter to get runners to second and third with two out.
Wigglesworth reared back and fired his 11th strikeout of the game to end the threat and get an enthusiastic Pittsfield team back into the dugout.
Mateo Fox then led off the bottom of the fourth with a single up the middle to break up a perfect game for Holden’s Ciara Rota.
Rota got the next two hitters on a line drive to second base and a strikeout to bring Pittsfield’s No. 1 hitter to the plate.
And Wigglesworth did what he has done so many times before, crushing a pitch deep over the center field fence to give his team a 2-0 lead.
“It gets me pumped up, I’m excited,” Wigglesworth said of the inning-ending strikeout, one of 14 he recorded in 5 and one-third innings of work.
“I started off a little unsettled, but I really settled in. I threw a lot more strikes as the game went on. We were all hitting the ball – it was just right to everybody. We ended up finding the gaps and putting it in play where some of the fielders couldn’t get to them.”
No one could have gotten to Wigglesworth’s game-winning bomb – not without a ladder.
And Holden managed just three hits when he was on the mound – each in separate innings.
“My fastball was working, but I think the pitch that was really working for me today was my slider,” he said. “I got a lot of guys off balance, froze a lot of kids. A lot of weak contact.
“I’m just very excited. We played well as a team.”
Pittsfield added an insurance run in the bottom of the fifth.
Sawyer Layne led off with a single up the middle.
He took second on an error and third on a groundout off the bat of Kody Lesser.
Shayne Clairmont then drove in Layne to make it 3-0.
Defensively, meanwhile, Pittsfield played error-free ball behind Wigglesworth on those occasions when Holden was able to put the ball in play.
The only possible concern early on was Wigglesworth’s pitch count. He threw 56 pitches over the first three innings, but he was more efficient in the fourth and fifth, using just 27 more pitches to get to the sixth.
Pittsfield coach Ty Perrault was unfazed by the early high numbers.
“A strikeout pitcher is going to get, you know, higher pitch counts,” Perrault said. “If he could get through five, we figured Mateo [Fox] could hold down the fort. He’s done that for us all through this. [Wigglesworth] got five and a third. That was tremendous.”
Entering the last inning with just two pitches left before the 85-pitch max, Wigglesworth ended his afternoon on the bump with strikeout No. 14 and handed the ball to Fox.
Fox continued the theme of the afternoon with a strikeout to the first batter he faced, but a dropped third strike allowed Holden’s Jack Flaherty to reach first with one out and give his team some hope.
But Fox closed the deal to pick up the save in spectacular fashion.
The next hitter grounded back to the mound. Fox fielded it and threw to the shortstop Layne, who relayed it to Spencer Kotski at first for the game’s first double play, a game-ender that sent Pittsfield back to next weekend’s state tournament in Andover.
“When a lot of our games had a lot of strikeouts, we didn’t have to make a lot of plays in the districts and even early in the sectional,” Perrault said. “But Westfield put a lot of balls in play, and we played good defense.
“I knew these guys [Holden] would because these guys hit 1 through 12. I told the guys right up front, ‘We’re going to have to play defense.’ And we did.”
Photos from this game to come.
