Beverly/Lowell's Kainan Bradford celebrates with his teammates after slamming his second homerun of the game Tuesday night as Post 389/750 downed Marietta Post 64 8-1 at Fort Frye High School. (Photo by Mike Morrison)

BEVERLY – Kainan Bradford slammed a pair of home runs Tuesday evening to lead Beverly/Lowell Post 389/750 to an 8-1 win over Marietta Post 64 at Fort Frye High School.

Bradford got Bev/Low on the board with a solo shot in the opening inning and then connected on a three-run blast in the bottom of the third to provide his squad with all the runs they would need as they downed Post 64 for the second time this season.

The Beverly/Lowell first baseman also homered in his final at-bat in a game at Pioneer Park against Marietta earlier in the season giving him home runs in three consecutive at bats against Post 64.

“I was just feeling really good tonight and was hunting a certain pitch and ended up getting it,” said Bradford.

Bev/Low sent lefty Witten Schaad to the bump and he struck out the side in the opening inning before Bradford’s blast got his team on the board.

Beverly/Lowell base runner Jack McCurdy is caught in a run-down between Marietta second baseman Saban Jones (43) and third baseman Tate Jonas (11). (Photo by Mike Morrison)

Bradford connected on a long home run the opposite way as his shot easily cleared the fence in left center field off of Post 64 starting pitcher Jacob Sealey.

“I’ve got to hit a lot off of Sealey and I know that he likes to attack hitters outside,” said Bradford. “I thought I might see something outside the first or second pitch and I was going to try to go with it that way and that’s what I got so it worked out well for me.”

Schaad allowed a lead-off single to Sabon Jones to begin the second inning but retired the next six Marietta hitters in order, three of them via the strikeout.

Beverly/Lowell would get to Sealey in the bottom of the third and once again it was Bradford doing the most damage.

With one out, Jack McCurdy and Cam Sidwell singled before right fielder Easton Walker forced Sidwell at second base on a ground ball back to Sealey.

Beverly/Lowell Post 389/750 head coach Todd Engle and Manager Doug Wainright are presented banners celebrating over 800 wins and three state championships for the program over the past two decades Tuesday evening at Fort Frye High School. (Photo by Mike Morrison)

It looked like Sealey might pitch around Bradford but he left a 2-0 pitch in his range and Bradford lined a bullet over the right field fence for a three-run bomb and a 4-0 Beverly/Lowell lead.

“I was just trying to stay aggressive against a good pitcher like Sealey with good velocity,” said Bradford. “I just got another fastball that I could hunt and was able to drive it.”

Schaad tossed a scoreless fourth and fanned the first batter he faced in the fifth but was pulled after walking Jace Hilverding and falling behind 3-0 to Owen Warden.

With his pitch count at 80, Beverly/Lowell head coach Todd Engle wanted to make sure Schaad would be able to pitch later in the week as Post 389/750 has a brutal stretch of games this week and into the weekend.

Jake Laswell came on in relief and ended up walking Warden before getting lead-off batter Will Tornes to ground-out into a 4-6-3 double play.

The double play was unusual to say the least as Tornes broke his aluminum bat on the play with part of the bat ending up on the right side of the infield along with the ball.

Sealey settled down nicely after the second Bradford home run and held Beverly/Lowell in check over the next two innings.

Marietta finally got on the board in the top of the sixth when Sealey walked, right fielder Braun Doak doubled to left center field and Gavin Fling brought the run in with a sacrifice fly to center field.

Laswell came up with a big out when he fanned Marietta’s Logan Fling to strand a pair of base runners and keep the lead at 4-1.

Marietta head coach Chad Porter felt like his team failed to take advantage of their opportunities which led to their demise.

“The bottom line is we had two innings there with opportunities and couldn’t get anything done,” said Porter. “Beverly/Lowell played really, really well and we have to capitalize when we get those opportunities against a team like that and we didn’t.”

Beverly/Lowell broke things wide open in the bottom of the sixth as they scored four unearned runs off Sealey with the key hits coming off the bats of JR Curry and McCurdy.

After a fielding error off of a ball hit by Dominic Fry allowed one run to score, Curry doubled in a run and McCurdy doubled in a pair to give Laswell a seven-run cushion to work with in the final inning.

Laswell fanned the first two hitters he faced in the seventh before getting Tornes to ground out to Bradford to end the game.

Engle felt like his team kicked off a full week with a solid performance.

“I keep telling them if everybody does their job and gets our big bats up behind them we will be alright and they did a good job of that tonight,” said

Engle. ” I like where we are at. We’ve just got to continue to get better every night.”

With the district tournament exactly one week away, Engle feels like his defending state championship team is coming together nicely and ready to make a run at a fourth state title.

“We are starting to roll at the right time now,” said Engle, whose team will travel to St. Clairsville on Wednesday. “We’ve got a really tough week with a lot of games and a lot of tough opponents so it will be a great test for us.”

The tournament draw for the District tournament held next week at Pioneer Park has already been done and the two teams will open tourney play against one another on Tuesday at 1 p.m.

“We’ve been playing some really good teams and they have too, so it’s going to be exciting playoff baseball,” said Porter. “They play the game the right way and we have a good opponent so we had better be ready.”

Beverly/Lowell improved to 16-7-1, while Post 64 slipped to 12-15.