By John Orrell, Contributing Writer
Shrewsbury – Good teams in sports find many different ways of winning; some conventional, others not so much.
For the Shrewsbury High varsity baseball team, the wins have just kept on coming to the tune of a 12-3 record in one of the region’s more grueling leagues (Midland A). All have been by sound baseball execution, but in some the outcomes have been by means that sometimes have defied the baseball norm.
Latest case in point was the Colonials’ walk-off, passed ball, extra-innings strikeout that broke a 4-4 tie with visiting Westborough High that saw catcher Nick Martin race home with the game-winner on one of the most bizarre endings to be found in the game of baseball.
Shrewsbury entered the season with a myriad of unanswered questions. Would the loss of a staggering nine players from 2015 that recorded a 16-7 record and advanced to the Division 1 Central Mass. final be too much to overcome? Would the remaining seniors exude enough confidence and project enough leadership to the younger players to get back to Districts, and would this team be as fun to watch as Colonial teams have typically been?
“Yes, yes and yes,” say players and coaches who have laid to rest any naysayer doubts. With but a handful of games remaining in the regular season, look for more savvy baseball from this bunch before District competition gets underway next month.
“We just find ways to win. We grind every day,” said senior co-captain Casey Boudreau. “I know that this is a team that can do it. Just like last year, we didn’t get what we wanted in the end, but we’ve worked hard and I know we can be successful in the playoffs.”
“Going into the season we definitely had a lot of doubters and that gave us a lot of extra motivation,” said multi-sport standout (ice hockey & baseball) Adam Twitchell. “We had a great year last year but we lost a lot of guys. We wanted to prove to everyone that we’re still on top and I think we’re doing that this year. We have a great group of guys, hard workers and our record says a lot.
“We have to stay sharp and work hard at practice. We need to keep winning so we can hopefully get a bye in the playoffs and get home field advantage. That’s huge for us.”
The teams exchanged leads throughout the matchup with the Rangers. The Tomahawks got on the board in the first inning after Martin delivered an RBI single that plated Luke Gorham. In the third, there would be a pair of runs crossing the plate on a sacrifice fly by Gorham and an RBI single by Martin, his second of three RBIs on the day.
Down 4-3 in the sixth, Gorham stepped up once more belting a lead-off triple and it was Martin cashing in again with a tying RBI sacrifice fly to right field. With the teams deadlocked in extra frames, Westborough retired the first two Shrewsbury batters before the almost unimaginable series of events occurred.
Martin slapped a two-out double before advancing to third on a balk setting the stage for Dillon Zona to deliver the winning run. Instead, Zona went down swinging for the apparent inning-ending out, but the ball passed through the Ranger catcher allowing Martin to race home with the winner but not before Westborough’s throw to first in desperation. Zona legged it out and was called safe to end it setting off a huge Colonial celebration for players and fans that were stunned but thoroughly pleased with the outcome.
“I just knew I had to shoot a gap somewhere with no one on,” said Marin of his eighth-inning plate appearance and eventual slide home for the win. “Putting myself in scoring position right away really gave the team a lot of confidence.”
Head coach Lee Diamantopoulos is known to tweak his starting lineup from game to game but that which he employed versus Westborough has been successful. It consists of Zona at first base, Liam Quinlivan at second, Korey Patwari at third with Boudreau in the shortstop position. Drew Campanale holds down left field with Twitchell, who made an ESPN highlight-reel type catch in the third inning, in centerfield and Gorham in right. Mike Filiere fills the DH role while Martin is the team’s ex-officio on-field leader behind the plate.
Dan McManus, James He, Kevin Hummer and others have drawn starts for the Colonials and pitched effectively.
“I’m not surprised that these kids are working hard and staying humble,” said Diamantopoulos, who has this team believing in themselves despite its relative youth. “Our team culture’s very good so I think that’s good karma for us and these guys really take every game seriously and want to win the day. We’ve been on the good end of most of our games.
“These are great kids and they really enjoy the game of baseball. Even that week when we had a lot of rain, these guys were still fresh in our indoor practices. We’re really trying to improve with each practice and as a coaching staff we thought that was refreshing to see. Once we saw that, we knew these guys were serious and they know they’re playing for something.”
Photos/Kelly Burneson
