A Westport team came close to winning a portion of the seventh annual Gary Jennings Memorial Baseball Tournament, but the local 12-year-old group came up just shy of the title.

A stout Wareham group beat the Westport Babe Ruth All-Star 12s, 9-5, in the division finals Sunday afternoon.

Chris Rosa was the offensive stud for the local 12s throughout the Jennings event and that continued into the finale.

The smooth-swinging left-hander cracked a pair of homers, including a grand slam as Westport held a lead as large as 5-1 before Wareham rallied to the eventual championship triumph.

"We had a good tournament overall," said Westport manager Mike Friar. "We just ran into a tough Wareham team. We lost to them twice. Other than that, we had a really good week."

Westport's Zach Lebreux (right) covers home plate during a 12-year-old contest in the Jennings Tourney.

Other Jennings results had Fairhaven A defeat Dartmouth A, 5-3, to win the 15-year-old crown. Whaling City topped Dartmouth, 10-6, to claim the 10s title.

Westport opened the 12-year-old part of the tourney with a 2-0 victory over Bristol on a no-hit effort by Nick Friar on the hill.

Rosa had his first two-homer contest of the event as the locals trounced Fall River Federal, 9-2, in their second outing.

Rosa was also the winning pitcher and went deep again, this time a two-run job, and it proved all he would need in Westport's 2-1 win over Maplewood.

"Chris had a great tournament," said Friar. "He's quite a hitter, quite an all-around ballplayer."

Saturday, the locals met up with the powerful Wareham bats for the first time, losing 13-3 in five innings.

Wareham broke out to a 7-1 lead after three innings. Rosa and the younger Friar plated runs in the top of the fourth for the locals to cut the margin. But Wareham tacked on three more in the fourth and later the fifth to end the game via the mercy rule.

In Sunday's losers' bracket final against Swansea Independent, Friar and Jim Cawley split the chores on the hill while the latter added a 3-for-3 performance at the dish in Westport's 7-0 triumph.

The locals finished with a 19-7 record in Cal Ripken Jr. Division All-Star tournaments and other postseason events during the summer of 2004.

"We had a great year," said the elder Friar. "The kids played great, and they got to play a lot of baseball, which is the most important thing."

BY MIKE REGO

mrego@eastbaynewspapers.com