Dover, Quintown to play in Cal Ripken 11-year-old state semifinals
The Dover Cal Ripken 11-year-old all-star team is no stranger to successful summers.
Dover, which advanced to last year's Cal Ripken 10-year-old World Series in Florida, picked up two huge wins over the weekend and have advanced in the state championship tournament resuming on Thursday with a showdown against a familiar opponent – Quintown.
On Saturday, Dover beat Swanzey, the host team, 22-0, and then followed that Sunday with a 12-2 win against Hudson.
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“We’re on to the winner’s bracket final,” Dover head coach Mike Lynch said.
Originally scheduled for Wednesday night, the game was moved to Thursday at 5:30 p.m at Lane Field Complex in Swanzey.
Thursday's winner will play in Saturday's state championship, while the loser will face either Nashua, Roger Allen, Hudson or Windham on Friday.
Windham and Hudson play on Wednesday, as does Roger Allen and Nashua. The two winners will play Thursday. With the winner of Thursday's game playing the loser between Dover and Quintown.
The state winner advances to the New England Regional which is scheduled to begin on July 15 in New Cannan, Connecticut.
In last week's area tournament, Dover defeated Quintown twice, including a 3-2 decision in the championship game.
With another matchup with Quintown on the horizon, Lynch and the team knows that it can’t overlook its opponent.
“At this point, we’ve seen a lot of the same teams,” Lynch said. “We played (Quintown) twice in the state tournament last year, and we played them twice in areas (this year). So, we’re pretty familiar with them, and they’re familiar with us.”
Though Dover has been on the winning side, the most recent game against Quintown is where Lynch wants the team to focus and remind itself that Quintown is a tough team.
“We’ve also played tight games with them," Lynch said. "The fact we just played a 3-2 game with them last week is actually going to help our kids to really focus in on the task at hand, and certainly not overlook them. Our kids know that (Quintown) is a good team, and as good a team that we’ve seen. Despite the fact that we played them a bunch of times, and beat them twice last week, they’ll be ready to go.”
Quintown defeated Milford on Saturday, 12-0 and beat Nashua 13-7 on Sunday to advance to Thursday's semifinals against Dover.
“Just continuing to play good baseball for the entire game,” Lynch said on his expectations heading into Thursday. “Really putting together a complete game is something that we haven’t really done yet in the state tournament. So, we’re hoping we can use that to get everyone focused and to play that complete game (Thursday) night.”
In the win over Swanzey, Connor Lynch had three hits and three RBI, Lucas Grigas had two hits and five RBIs, Owen Lovering had two hits and three RBI, and Brady Flynn (three innings) and Des Fennessy (one inning) combined on a no-hitter.
Against Hudson, Lynch had another three hits, with three RBIs. He also pitched four innings of one-hit ball without allowing an earned run. Lovering added three hits, three runs and three RBIs and Fennessy had two hits with two RBI.
This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: Dover advances in Cal Ripken 11-year-old state tournament will play Quintown
