By ALEX SPONSELLER After falling to 0-6 to begin the season, the Flood Ford Connie Mack baseball team has since been the hottest team in the state, winning its final seven regular season games and defeating Warwick PAL in two games in the first round of the playoffs.

Flood Ford took the first game of the season by a score of 11-1. Devyn Glenn took the mound for Flood Ford and allowed just one hit in six innings of work. Jay Pilderian led the team at the dish with a single, double and a triple.

The team would return to action the following night and once again surge to the win, this time to the tune of 13-4.

Chris Manzo got the start on the mound for Flood Ford in the win.

“The way the playoffs go, it’s only a day off between series so to win in two games really helps you with pitching, getting those days off. It’s definitely a plus to win in two games,” said Flood Ford manager Ed Holloway. “The first game we got an excellent pitching performance from Devyn Glenn. He went six innings with one hit and then reliever Keith Daigneau came in and shut them down. We got a few key hits, took advantage of some of their errors. Played very good defense,” said Holloway.

PAL managed to get on the board early to apply some pressure in the second game, but the team’s offense would take off down the stretch to roll to the series win.

“Chris Manzo did a great job. Unfortunately we didn’t play as well behind him and allowed a few runs early. That hurt us because it raised Chris’ pitch count. Ben Picone and Noah Sullivan came in and helped us get out of there. Those three guys pitched well, our pitching is what won the two games for us,” said Holloway.

Now, riding a nine-game winning streak, Holloway has been encouraged to see the team playing its best ball when it counts most and hopes that it will carry that momentum into the next round.

“We lost some tough games early in. We lost our first game 1-0, lost to Lincoln 3-0. We’ve been playing much better and have now won nine in a row. It was an adjustment, it took some time. It’s a wooden bat league so that was an adjustment, Xavier Quezada was hurt and was in a boot in the first six games. Having him back has helped our offense. They’ve played better, the chemistry has developed, everything is clicking for us right now,” said Holloway. “I tried to keep pointing out the positive things we did in each game. Early on I would tell them that we were better than the games we played. We got some great pitching but didn’t get the big hits. We’d just tell them to stay positive, keep working and things would happen. Now we’ve won our last nine games.”