By John Orrell, Contributing Writer
Northborough — Teetering on the brink of playoff eligibility with a season of ups and downs was not exactly how Northborough Post 234 manager Ken MacDonald would have written the script for the 2017 campaign, but it’s been just that as that the squad inches closer to securing a playoff spot.
With a handful of games remaining, Post 234, the Northborough / Westborough region’s entry into American Legion Zone 4 baseball, holds the fifth place out of eight qualifiers in playoff competition so that turning it on in the stretch run is a necessity. The highs (a victory over previously undefeated 13-0 Leominster) is the highest of highs, but a 14-3 drubbing by host Shrewsbury on July 2 was admittedly the wrong side of the ledger for the team, players and coaches admit.
“We need to play a complete game,” said MacDonald. “We’ve shown flashes of having good pitching, good defense and good hitting at times but we have to pull it all together and play a complete game and if we do that I think we can do some damage in the playoffs.
“Any time you beat an undefeated team, they (Leominster) were 13-0 at the time, it’s huge and hopefully we can build some confidence off of that and have a good finish to the season. We’ve started out slow and gotten better as the season’s gone on and I think we have deep pitching, good hitting and if we can improve our defensive game we can be a very dangerous team down the stretch.”
“Something that we’ve talked about a lot is playing a full seven innings,” said starting pitcher Charles Gallagher. “Sometimes we come out flat and don’t have a lot of energy in the first two innings then we’ll turn it on towards the end then we don’t have enough to win the game for us. So just playing the full seven is really huge.”
One of the challenges of Legion ball is the sudden thrust from players seeing one another as opponent to teammates in literally a matter of hours. When the curtain falls on high school baseball, the jump to Legion is often rapid resulting in a need for some pretty quick team bonding.
“As a high-schooler it’s pretty hard because you go from playing against a lot of kids like Westborough then you come and play with them on the same team,” Gallagher explained. “It can be a difficult transition partially because you’re playing almost every day. It’s a different vibe from high school ball to summer ball.”
“It’s good to be able to put the team together and combine the talent from surrounding areas to form one good team and I think we’ve gotten better as the season goes on and hopefully we can build some momentum for the playoffs,” MacDonald said. “I think it takes a little time to gel as a team but we have a good group of kids and we have good team chemistry and we’ve gotten better as the season has gone on.”
For now, it’s a fight to the finish line for Post 234 but there is plenty of optimism and awareness of what must occur in the waning days of the regular season. Combining all aspects of the game will be what it takes, all agree.
“I feel like the season has gone ok but not as good as we could have gone,” said pitcher/ outfielder Dan Lis. “I don’t think we’ve played a full seven innings to our potential. We played some games where our fielding was good but our hitting wasn’t and we’ve played some games where our hitting was good and our fielding wasn’t. I feel like to unlock that potential we have the full trifecta of pitching, hitting and defense to give ourselves a presence in the playoffs.
“I feel like the confidence and momentum has been building. We just have to find a way to prolong that momentum to keep it going and take it one game at a time.”
“We have a really good group of guys who know how to pick each other up and have their backs,” MacDonald added. “I think as the season has gone on they’ve really gelled well together and I think they understand if we can combine all their talents together that we can be a very good team.”
Members of the 2017 Northborough Post 234 American Legion baseball team are Ryan Courtwright (2B/OF), Ross Grasso (C), Cam Brooks (2B/OF), Nick Francalancia (SS/P), Johnny Kelley (SS), Chris Lyons (P/OF), Sam Slovin (C/1B), Charles Gallagher (P), Zach Zides (P/OF), Antony Francalancia (3B/ P), Collin Mitchell (OF/P), Devin Parent (OF), Dan Lis (P/OF), Ben Horsfall (C/1B), Drew Courtwright (3B/1B), Max Morhardt (3B/OF) Matt Maslowski (3B) and Ben Grasso (1B).
Admission to Legion games is always free. The team plays its home games at Memorial Field in Northborough. For more information, including schedule, visit the American Legion District 4 website at http://www.district4baseball.com.
Photos/Jeff Slovin