Dirty Laces win town title

The Johnston season was filled with plenty of highs and lows this season…it truly showed what this league and the families in this community are all about.
Dirty Laces had a relatively strong season however once the playoffs started, they kicked it up a notch…
The finals were against the regular season first place team sponsored by the Johnston School Committee, managed by John Amaral.
Dirty Laces took Game 1, 10-3 with solid pitching by Logan Martins and then Anthony Vendetti coming in to finish the last few innings in relief.
“ This was definitely the way we wanted to start…that is a strong well-balanced team and we need to play every inning,” said manager Gary Rianna.
Dirty Laces jumped out to a 5-0 lead in the top of the first inning in Game, however, Amaral’s crew wasn’t rattled. They chipped away and shut down the bats of Dirty Laces and capped off an impressive 10-6 victory to tie up the series.
Jacob Pettit was solid after the rough first inning, and not allowing another run through his 5 1/3 inning stint. Nick D’Quilla came for relief and closed out the game.
“Jake was awesome… the entire time was. Most teams would have been beaten after the first inning. Not them, they were impressive,” said Rianna.
Johnston School Committee jumped out to a quick 1-0 lead in the top of the first inning of Game 3, however it didn’t last long. Lead off hitter for Dirty Laces, Paul Scorpio took a 2-1 pitch and launched it over the left field fence to quickly tie the game at 1-1.
Dirty Laces continued to hit and added two more in their half of the first inning to take a 3-1 lead. Pitching settled down however the Lace’s started again in the third inning. The Lace’s put up four more. Hits by Anthony Vendetti, Ronnie Vento, Owen Polofsky and Luca Schroer added to the attack.
Logan Martins pitched through a free-swinging lineup and handed the ball off to Ronnie Vento to finish off the inning. Going into the 5th inning leading 8-3 the Lace’s didn’t want to take any chances…once again, Paul Scorpio leading off the inning, this time, took the first pitch he saw and put it in the trees well over the left field fence for his second home run of the game … that opened the flood gates and the Lace’s went on to score four more runs closing the game and the 2023 Johnston Town Championship with a final score of 13-3.
“ I couldn’t be more happy for my 16 years. Paul Scorpio ends with a two-home run championship game, Brendon Simonelli who caught almost every inning this season and was solid with the glove and the bat, not to mention he threw out Nick at third today, who is by far the fastest player in the league. And of course Logan Martins, solid player … will play anywhere and is always ready to play. Thank you to all the players, the parents, my first year coach and former player Joe and of course Coach Erik,” said Rianna.