Correiro lifts EP to win over Lincoln with extra-inning grand slam

LINCOLN — Max Correiro wasn’t going to let a fastball beat him.

That was his approach at the plate in the top of the eighth inning Thursday afternoon, and it turned out to be ideal for East Providence.

Correiro crushed a grand slam to finally settle this Division I thriller with Lincoln, giving the Townies the lead in the lone extra frame. Kyle Desrosiers nailed it down from there on the mound and East Providence left Chet Nichols Field with a 10-6 victory on April 23.

The Lions lost a two-run lead in the top of the seventh, pulled even on a Caden Oldham solo homer in the bottom half and slipped behind again for good when they went back into the field. Chris Charbonneau started on second base as the automatic runner under the tiebreaker rules and consecutive hit-by-pitches put Gavin Palombo and Aidan Martins aboard. Correiro dug in from the left side against Carson Mellen and smashed the first pitch over the fence in deep right field.

“I was just going up there knowing I was getting a fastball,” Correiro said. “I just said, ‘I’m not going to get beat.’ ”

It was the third hit of the afternoon for Correiro, who singled through the right side in the first and beat out a roller to second in the seventh. His swinging strikeout and pop to first in two other at-bats had Correiro thinking how Lincoln might want to attack him with the game on the line. Mellen lost breaking balls off the plate to put Palombo and Martins on — an educated guess had Correiro on his way to becoming the hero.

“I really just blacked out,” Correiro said of the moment he saw the ball disappear into the trees in right. “I’ll be honest — I knew the stakes. I knew what it meant.”

The Townies were down to their last out in the seventh before giving Correiro a chance to make his mark under the bright sunshine. JJ Renaud lined a run-scoring single to center to make it 5-4 and Jamison Sydney came to the plate with two on and two hits already to his credit. He sent a slicing liner to the base of the fence in right for a two-run double, handing East Providence a 6-5 advantage.

JJ Renaud, East Providence baseball

“Nothing different from the approach earlier in the game,” Sydney said. “Hit the ball hard and good things will happen. Just trying to keep it simple.”