The Warwick Vets Junior High Hurricanes baseball team was ousted from the playoffs after losing 8-1 to the Feinstein Middle School Falcons during the state quarterfinals at Rice Memorial Field on a rainy Tuesday afternoon.

The game was delayed for about an hour during the fourth inning, but when the rain stopped, the game resumed.

Jake Ward pitched a complete-game gem for Feinstein, striking out two while giving up just the one run. Ryan Fogell led Feinstein on offense with two hits and two RBI and a walk.

“That’s a tough team,” Vets head coach Sean Rainey said. “But, I think our team is just as good. We can play against them if we play better. We didn’t play good against them.”

Rainey believes that the 13-inning game Vets played at Scituate on Saturday during the first round was the reason for his team’s poor performance on Tuesday. Warwick won that game 7-6.

“I think Saturday’s game took a lot out of us,” Rainey said.  “We were weak on pitching. So, we tried to do what we could do today.”

Sean Gallagher, the ‘Canes ace, wasn’t eligible to pitch after recording 21 outs on Saturday and Warwick’s number two pitcher, Brendan McCaffrey, was out with shoulder tendonitis.

The ‘Canes opted to start 8th-grader DJ Solitto on the hill before bringing in 7th grader Tyler Cote in the second inning.

“(Cote’s) our curveball specialist and (Feinstein) has trouble with curveballs and off-speed stuff,” Rainey explained. “We went with Solitto to start and we had a plan to bring in Cote in the second or third inning to throw them off-balance. And that’s what he did. He got five or six pop ups. He did well.”

Vets brought in Thomas D’Andrea during the fourth inning and he closed out the game on the mound.  

Fogell belted a two-out RBI single to shallow center and gave Feinstein an early 1-0 edge in the bottom of the first

Warwick catcher Jack Hornstein evened the score when he ripped an RBI single through the middle to score Solitto and tied the game at 1.

Nonetheless, Feinstein was able to pile on the runs in the bottom of the second.

Feinstein got three runs on bases-loaded walks, another when Brendan O’Brien scored from third during a passed ball, and the last when Fogell drove in Adam Vesey with an RBI single to right field, which extended Feinstein’s lead to 6-1.

Feinstein added to its cushion in the fifth when Jared Vadaboncouer knocked in Nate Dunn with an RBI single to left to increase their lead to 7-1. Fogell would later drive in Adam Vesey and give Feinstein the 8-1 advantage.