Patriots just miss postseason berth

  Trailing by 10 runs at one point against Boston Latin last Wednesday, the Revere High School baseball team’s hopes of making the playoffs appeared to be ended. But the Patriots refused to pack it in and stormed back to tie the game, which was suspended in the sixth inning due to heavy rain.

  In between, Revere knocked off Gloucester on the road this past Saturday by a 5-3 score to improve to 9-10 on the season with the resumption of last Wednesday’s suspended contest on tap for the following Sunday. Head Coach Mike Manning commented that his 13-player squad showed no quit after surging back from a seemingly insurmountable deficit against Latin.

  However, Sunday’s continuation didn’t turn out as the Patriots hoped. Latin ended up on the top side of a 12-11 final, thus eliminating Revere from any chance of a postseason tourney spot in 2023. The Patriots finished the campaign at 9-11 overall. They could easily have concluded with four or five more victories had certain things played out differently.

  “Sometimes the win and loss record doesn’t tell the whole story,” Manning pointed out, noting that his team lost five games by one run. “Six times we had the tying runner in scoring position in the last inning. [We also] challenged ourselves with a tough non-league slate instead of taking [the] easy route. This team had heart.”

  Sitting at 8-7 overall with five games to go in the regular season, Revere lost three straight heartbreakers in the late innings: a 3-2 loss to Somerville when a hard-hit ball with runners on turned into an out to end the game, a 13-10 extra-inning loss to Lynn English when the Patriots fought back from two huge deficits, and a 5-4 defeat to Malden Catholic when the potential tying run was thrown out at the plate to end the game.

  In the win over Gloucester, pitcher Kyle Cummings tossed another strong game for the win, while Brendan Sack drove in the game-winning run.

  Several seniors are graduating from this year’s team. They are Sal DeAngelis, Chris Cassidy, Chris Cecca, Giancarlo Miro, Domenic Boudreau and Santino Blazo.