By Jesse Kucewicz, Contributing Writer
HUDSON – After a slow start to their season, the Hudson Legion Post 100 baseball team won two straight games to bring its overall record to 3-4 as of July 16.
The latter of those two wins came on July 14 against an undefeated Ashland Post 77, with Hudson batting in a season-high ten runs and allowing just one run, also a season-best.
Hudson Manager Ryan Bowen credited defensive efficiency for the team’s recent success.
“It’s really good to get a win against those guys,” he said of the victory over what remains a dominant Ashland team. “Any time you can get a win against an undefeated team, you’ll take it.”
“We’ve been preaching good pitching and good defense all year,” he continued. “We were kind of sporadic with that to start the year, but the last two nights, we’ve had really good efforts on the field and on the mound.”
Hudson pitcher Justin Wolfe held Ashland to just four hits through all seven innings. The night prior, teammate James Borsari also pitched a complete game, earning nine strikeouts in a 5-4 walk-off win over Lowell.
Hudson Post 100 began this season with an almost entirely new roster compared to when the team last competed in 2019.
“Last year was weird because of COVID, there was no American Legion baseball at all,” Bowen said. “We’ve had a lot of roster turnover since then, so this year we actually only have one player returning from our team two years ago.”
Hudson marks the middle of its season with the first Massachusetts District Five tournament on Tuesday, July 20, and Wednesday, July 21. The top four teams of the seven total in District Five will then compete in a single-elimination tournament hosted by Natick.
“We obviously didn’t start the season off great, but we reached a turning point, I think, and hopefully we’re going in the right direction,” Bowen said. “We showed what we can do the last two nights. Any time we have good pitching and defense, we can play with anybody.”
