Cranston West baseball is finding ways to get wins; that should have the rest of the state scared as postseason nears
WARWICK — With the playoffs quickly approaching, now’s not a bad time to learn how to win games.
Was Wednesday’s Division I battle between Cranston West and Toll Gate pretty? Far from it. But it did show the grit and determination that could end up being the difference between your team advancing in the postseason and seeing your season end early.
The Falcons didn’t start well but they finished strong and came away with an 11-6 win. Every win matters because seeding is going to be crucial for the postseason. If Cranston West wants to be in the conversation, Wednesday’s win certainly helps its cause.
“We’ll take anything we can get,” Cranston West center fielder Colby Kuzman said. “We kind of just take it one game at a time and we’ll take any wins we can get. … When playoffs come, we’ll be ready for them.”
“We should definitely be in the conversation already,” said West closer Jake Snowling, who threw the final two innings to seal the win. “We’re a really good team, so we’ll see how it goes.”
Everyone knows the favorites in Division I. Defending state champ North Kingstown has dominated, Hendricken has more Division I commits than most teams have All-Division players and South Kingstown has the pitcher that can beat just about anybody.
Throw in a surprising Cumberland, always feisty Pilgrim and two tough teams in Mt. Hope and La Salle, and your list of who can win the 2022 state title comes together.
Where is Cranston West? Well, that’s what the Falcons are trying to figure out. They haven’t had the consistency they’ve hoped for — and how they played Wednesday didn’t provide answers — but they know that with what they’ve got, there’s no reason they can’t find themselves in the thick of it.
“This team can win a lot of games,” Snowling said. “We’re a really good team if we put our heads to it. We can win almost every single game and definitely against every single team.”
“We kind of just take one pitch at a time and whatever happens, we just try to build on it,” Kuzman said. “Then we’ll see what happens.”
Wednesday’s win showed the attitude the Falcons will need to succeed. When it mattered most, Cranston West came up with its biggest inning.
The Falcons gave the lead away with some defensive miscues in the fourth, then grinded out a run to tie the game in the top half of the fifth on an RBI single by Edwin Silverio.
In the sixth, the offense exploded. Cranston West showed patience at the plate and two walks after a leadoff single by Anthony DeCotis loaded the bases with two outs. In stepped pinch hitter Luciano Leone, who blooped a shot to right field that scored DeCotis and Cole Carbone.
“It was a tight game, so that was definitely a good hit,” Snowling said. “We all trust [our] teammates with all [our] hearts and I believe in all my teammates.”
Two batters later, Jacob Chin laced a two-out single to center that scored Thomas Cabana and George Threats, and Silverio, who had reached on a hit-by-pitch, scored the final run on a passed ball to give Cranston West a comfortable five-run lead.
“We live for these moments,” Kuzman said. “High school baseball is the best moments of our lives and, when we do what we can with our potential, it’s the best.”
For Toll Gate, the sixth inning was their season in a nutshell. The Titans have the talent and when they play clean baseball, they’re a good team.
But mistakes haunt you in a hurry and when you can’t stop the bleeding, results like Wednesday are going to happen.
“All season long, we’ve had one aspect — hitting. Today we hit well; we just weren’t making the plays in the field,” Toll Gate first baseman Matthew Colvin said. “If we put it all together, we’ll be fine.”
That’s going to be the key. Toll Gate will roll on from the loss and the team's players are full of confidence; they're just waiting for their moment. The Titans need another win to make the postseason and know that if they’re in the tourney, anything can happen from there.
Toll Gate wraps up the regular season with a home game against Hendricken on Thursday before playing on the road against the Hawks next Tuesday.
“We beat Cumberland and they’re No. 2 in the division. We beat them last weekend,” Colvin said. “I think when we play together, we can play with any team in the division. We think we can beat anyone.”
Cranston West does, too, and that’s why even if its name isn’t the first out of people’s mouths when it comes to title talk, the Falcons don’t care. No one was paying attention to them last season and they went out and shocked the world, taking down Hendricken in the Division I preliminary round.
The players who were there last year remember. Cranston West has three regular-season games left — a two-game series with Lincoln before closing with rival Cranston East on May 26 — and the Falcons are out to show, just like on Wednesday, that they can play their best baseball when it matters most.
“West is up there 100 percent,” Snowling said. “No matter what, we’re always there and we’re always ready to play.”
“[Our eyes] are obviously looking at playoffs, but it’s one game at a time,” Kuzman said. “We have to make sure we get there and solidify our spot.”
This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: Cranston West picks up crucial D-I baseball win over Toll Gate Wednesday
