Back-to-Back!: Both Newburyport 12U and 10U All-Star teams win second straight Bay State Baseball championship

Aug. 17—WINCHESTER — He may be a young man of few words right now. But when everything's been on the line the past two years, Sam Luekens has spoken loudly and clearly with his actions on the mound for his Newburyport All-Star Little League team.

At just 12 years old, Luekens already has the poise of a 12-year big leaguer.

Sunday night, the right-hander once again pitched his Newburyport 12U All-Star team to a Bay State Games championship. Showcasing a fastball with some pop and a devastating curveball that rarely missed its spot, Luekens tossed a complete-game two-hitter with six strikeouts to pace Newburyport to a 6-4 win over Arlington to bring home the Division A title.

Sound familiar?

Exactly a year ago, it was Luekens on the mound leading the same exact group of 12 players to the Bay State Class B championship when the team was 11Us. In that one, he struck out 11 over 5.1 innings in a 4-2 win over Reading, capping that team's perfect season at 26-0-1.

Now, the legend is only growing.

"It feels really good," said Luekens, who also went 1-for-3 at the plate in Sunday's victory. "I just wanted to win our last game and we did it. It felt good to beat all these teams and win it again."

While not undefeated this time around, the Newburyport 12s graduate out of Little League as back-to-back Bay State champions. The tight-knit group finished the year with a 22-3 overall record, having advanced to the Cal Ripken state semifinals earlier in the summer.

"It's the exact same group of 12 kids from last year," said Newburyport coach Tim DeGraves Sr. "Every week, it seemed like we faced the other team's ace. You know, they all wanted to come and get Newburyport."

But hard as opposing teams tried, nobody could stop Newburyport.

After beating Chelmsford, 7-3, in the semifinals on Saturday, Newburyport gave the ball to Luekens for the championship game and didn't think twice. He cruised through three perfect innings, and didn't allow either of his two hits until the sixth as Arlington batters routinely swung an missed at his curveball.

"I said to his father (Mike Luekens), whose helped us on the staff this year, everything I ever ask of Sam, he does," said DeGraves. "I looked over to his father in the fourth inning and I said, "He hasn't missed a spot I've called all night.' His curveball was really tight today."

Newburyport threatened in both the first and second innings, and finally broke through in the third.

Parker Johnson, who made some outstanding plays defensively from his shortstop position, started the inning with a walk before stealing second and taking third on a past ball. Two batters later, Timmy DeGraves Jr. — the son of the coach — laced a single that scored the first run of the game.

Arlington would strike with an unearned run in the top of the fourth, but Newburyport broke the game open in the bottom half.

In total, Newburyport sent 11 batters to the plate and scored fives runs in the frame to take a 6-1 lead. Johnson, Tyler Lisauskas, Tucker Cowles and Nolan Winters all had RBI-hits in the inning, as Newburyport laid down a handful of beautiful bunts to get on base and force the Arlington defense to make plays. Home Run Derby champion Bennett Beaulier — who smashed 26 homers to win the title on Saturday — drew a walk in the inning, as did DeGraves Jr. and Cormac Morrissey.

"I think the biggest thing we did tonight to grind out some runs was we executed on small ball," said DeGraves Sr. "Bunting, making the other teams field, moving runners over, scoring on sac flys, that was the biggest part of it. The guys, every time we asked them to do it, they did it."

And that was plenty of run support for Luekens.

Arlington did make things interesting with a flurry in the top of the sixth. A two-out single scored a run and put runners on first and second, and a subsequent error plated both of those runners and brought the tying run to the plate. But Luekens took a deep breath, and induced a groundout to Johnson at short to end the game.

All told, it was another summer to remember for the two-time champs.

Newburyport 10U wins second straight as well

As it currently stands, the Newburyport 10U All-Star Little League team is in line to potentially make it a four-peat in a couple of years.

After winning the Bay State Games U9 tournament last summer, the same squad was back at it on Sunday as U10s to make it two titles in a row. Newburyport pounded out north of 20 hits, cruising to a 15-3 victory over a strong team from Acton.

The team was coached by Chris Sheehan, whose youngest son, Matthew, was on the team. And together the pair got to watch Matthew's older brother, Timmy, win it with the U12s a few hours later.