The Somerville Alibrandis have successfully taken their regular season winning momentum into the playoffs.

By Benjamin Klein

The Somerville Alibrandis have had a very successful season and that success has translated into postseason victories. Somerville won their first series with ease and recently won a best-of-five series over the Stoneham Sabers in order to advance into the Yawkey Baseball League championship series against the Malden Bulldogs.

The No.8 South Boston Saints were no match for the No.1 Alibrandis in the YBL quarterfinals as Somerville swept the five-game series. Somerville’s next test, the No.6 Stoneham Sabers, was a little tougher.

Stoneham took the series opener 1-0 in extra innings behind a miraculous performance by the Sabers’ pitcher Chris Dion. He only allowed one hit over eight innings of work to completely shut down the mighty Somerville offense. Jon Morse was great on the mound as well, but Brian Tanguy ended up walking in a run in the top of the eighth inning and that led to the Alibrandis loss.

Somerville relied on Chris Foundas to get them back into the series and he didn’t let them down. Foundas pitched very well over the course of six innings, only allowing two unearned runs. The offense finally came alive in this one as they scored three runs in the third inning and then a run in the fifth and six innings. Ted Dziuba and Marc DesRoches each drove in two runs in Somerville’s 5-2 victory to tie the series.

The third game was very important and Somerville didn’t allow the Sabers a shot at winning it. The Alibrandis scored at least one run in every inning from the second through the fifth inning, a total of eight runs. Stan DeMartinis went 4-for-4 for Somerville with a run and an RBI while Sean Sullivan picked up the win on the mound.

The Alibrandis won the series the very next night behind a great pitching performance from Anthony Del Prete. Del Prete threw a complete game shutout against the Sabers while only allowing three hits. Dziuba hit a solo home run and Sal Mendonca also drove in a run for Somerville as they won the game 2-0 and took the series 3-1.

Somerville will face the No. 5 Malden Bulldogs in the YBL championship, a best-of-seven series starting on August 28, a date subject to change. Somerville defeated Malden three times during the regular season.