Melrose – The Blue Sox and Americans battled for nine innings before the Sox came away with a 6-4 win and advanced to the Intercity League finals. For the 21st time since the Blue Sox’s inception in 1995, the team will be playing for an Intercity League championship. Scoring twice in the top of the ninth, Lexington swept the semifinal series with Melrose. The Sox will play their Lexington neighbors, the Bulldogs, in the first playoff meeting between the occupants of Lexington High School’s Center One Field. Pat Casserly started the ninth reaching on an infield error. David VanderZouwen reached on a bunt single, and there were Sox on first and second with no outs. A sacrifice bunt by Brendan Jones moved both runners into scoring position. A drive by Erick Ramirez to right field was deep enough to score Casserly from third with the go-ahead run. Will Norris beat out a ground ball to third for an infield hit that scored VanderZouwen for the 6-4 lead. Michael O’Brien was the fifth Blue Sox pitcher of the game, came in and threw a 1-2-3 ninth, striking out Ian Libby to bring the game to a close. Down 4-0 in the sixth, the Americans rallied for four runs to knot the score at 4-4. Sox reliever Luke Marshall, who threw a perfect fifth inning, walked the first two batters in the sixth. The call to the bullpen brought Josh Becker in to put out the fire. Pat Costigan singled to left to load the bases with no outs. Becker hit Alex Fernandes with his first pitch, and the Americans were on the scoreboard. John Jennings followed with a single to left, cutting the lead to 4-2. Becker struck out the next two Americans, but with two left-handed batters coming up, Lexington went to the bullpen again. This time, lefty veteran Ryan O’Rourke took the hill. On a 2-2 count, Aidan Barry hit a line drive into right that scored Costigan and Fernandes, tying the game at 4-4. O’Rourke struck out Libby to finally end the rally. Lexington had taken a 4-0 lead going into the bottom of the sixth, scoring three times in the top half of the inning. Julian Alvarez singled to right to start the rally. He was pinch-run for by Norris. After a walk to Jake McElroy, Melrose went to the bullpen and brought in Luke Yorba. He promptly gave up a double to center by Luis Antiles that scored both runners for a 3-0 lead. Antiles scored on Luke Maltacea’s single for the 4-0 lead. McElroy scored the Sox’s first run in the fourth. He doubled to lead off the frame. After a flyout moved him to third, he scored on Anderson Jimenez’ RBI single for the 1-0 lead. Blue Sox starter Matt Draper pitched four innings, only giving up one hit, a game-leadoff double to Costigan. Draper got out of the first by catching a line drive off the bat of Jennings and turning to double off Costigan. He pitched a 1-2-3 second and then stranded two Melrose runners in the third and fourth innings. Draper walked one and struck out three. The Americans started Brandon McMahon, who lasted three plus innings. He gave up three hits, one run, walked two, and struck out three. The bullpens struggled for both teams. For Melrose, Jake Simpson, Yorba, and Nick Colucci all came in with runners on base, and all four of those runners scored. For Lexington, Becker and O’Rourke entered the game with five runners on between them, with four of them scoring. O’Rourke settled down in the seventh and eighth innings, retiring the last four batters he faced, three by strikeout. He finished with four K’s and picked up his first win of the 2025 season. It was his third career playoff victory. For O’Brien, it was his first save of 2025 and his first in two seasons with the Blue Sox. The teams combined to throw 301 pitches, 189 for strikes in the nine-inning contest. This was the first extra-inning playoff game between Melrose and Lexington. This was the longest postseason game for Lexington since it played 10 innings against Reading in game three of the 2017 finals on August 24.   By Lexington Blue Sox Team Historian Bruce Hack