NEW BEDFORD — It isn’t often that a baseball team can make great teams look completely average, but the Norwood American Legion team proved it can do just that.
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Kicking off its defense of the state Legion title over the weekend with two lopsided victories in the double-elimination tournament, Norwood thrashed Spindle City of Fall River 8-2 on Saturday before blanking central sectional champion West Boylston 11-0 yesterday at Sargent Field. Now sitting at an incredible 30-1 record, Norwood stands just one win away from capturing an unprecedented second consecutive state championship and advancing to the regionals. “Last year we were the state champs,” Coach Pete Wall told his players after yesterday’s rout. “If we win the next one, this will probably go down as the best team we’ve ever had. Thirty and one is a heck of a record. We’ve got one more to go.”
Yesterday’s contest against West Boylston was virtually no contest from the opening frame. Norwood plated three runs in the first inning, ignited by Chris Maloof’s sharp double to right-center, a single by Kevin Igoe, an RBI double by Mike Wall, and a sacrifice fly from Bob Goonan, capped by a double-steal execution that brought Wall home. Norwood added a run in the third on an RBI double by Mike Generazo and broke the game wide open with four runs in the fourth behind two-run hits from Mike Wall and Derek Ghostlaw. Generazo tacked on another RBI in the sixth, Goonan drove in a run in the seventh, and a final run crossed on a ninth-inning wild pitch. The offensive explosion was more than enough support for starting pitcher Scott Generazo, who dazzled by striking out 10 batters and scattering just four hits across seven dominant innings before Bob Goonan came in to pitch the eighth and ninth, preserving the shutout.
Saturday’s opening matchup against Spindle City followed a similarly dominant script. Norwood struck early and coasted behind the six-hit, 10-strikeout pitching performance of Bob Baxter, whose stellar season record improved to 13-1. Mike Wall contributed an RBI single in the third, Ghostlaw hit a run-scoring double in the fourth, and Mike Generazo cleared the bases with a deep double to center in a big fifth inning. Norwood punctuated its victory with a flurry of extra-base hits—tallied at eight doubles over the weekend—including back-to-back-to-back doubles by Generazo, Jim Delbou, and Ted Decareau.
The weekend offensive surge was paced heavily by Coach Wall’s son, Mike Wall, who went 6-for-11 across the two games with four RBIs, bringing his blistering four-game stretch to 13-for-20. With 24 total hits over the weekend, Norwood advances to play tomorrow at 7:30 p.m. against the winner of the Aldenville-West Boylston matchup, needing just one victory to secure the state crown or forcing a final showdown on Wednesday night if necessary. (Reporting by Don Money for The Patriot Ledger).
Archival Note: This article has been dynamically reconstructed from the original public record print archives of the Patriot Ledger
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