YARMOUTH — Yarmouth junior David Swift doesn’t consider himself a pitcher, but he dazzled on the mound Saturday afternoon in a Class B South baseball semifinal against rival Greely.
And his bat was pretty impressive, too, as the second-seeded Clippers eliminated the sixth-seeded Rangers, 6-1.
Yarmouth (13-5) beat Greely (11-8) for the third time this year and set up a regional final showdown Tuesday against top-seeded Cape Elizabeth at St. Joseph’s College. The Capers defeated Fryeburg Academy, 7-2.
“I felt pretty good (on the mound),” said Swift, who also had three hits, drove in two runs and scored once. “I don’t think of myself as a pitcher, but I just stepped up and did it for all the boys.”
Greely, which upset No. 2 Wells in the quarterfinals on Thursday, took a 1-0 lead in the top of the first when Wyatt Soucie drew a leadoff walk, stole second and scored on Ryder Simpson’s two-out single.
Yarmouth drew even in the second against Greely pitcher Keeler Vogt. Sam Lowenstein bunted his way on, stole second, then scored on Jonny Cody’s hit-and-run single.
Yarmouth’s Matt Gautreau was plunked by a pitch with one out in the third, then raced home, diving across the plate, when Swift doubled down the left-field line.
“It’s playoffs and I just needed to get on base to help my team,” said Gautreau. “Coach (Marc Halsted) told me to get down (on the slide), so I dove. Better safe than sorry.”
Swift fanned eight in the first four innings. Yarmouth made it 3-1 in the bottom of the fourth on a throwing error.
An RBI groundout by Stevie Walsh and a wild pitch that scored Swift pushed the lead to 5-1 in the fifth.
Swift added an opposite-field RBI single in the sixth, driving home Gautreau after he was hit by a pitch for the third time.
“David Swift can hit,” said Halsted. “He turned on a fastball and hit a line drive down the line for an RBI, then pushes one to right field for an RBI, and (also) singled through the hole. That’s hitting right there.”
Andrew Cheever came on to pitch the final two innings for Yarmouth.
Soucie had two hits for the Rangers.
“I’m just proud of this team for how hard they worked from the time we were 7-7 and there was a question whether we’d even make the playoffs, to coming back and playing with a lot of grit and energy and heart, and we got two nice playoff wins,” said Greely Coach Derek Soule. “Our guys really competed, but we just made some mistakes today.”
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