While accepting the trophy for winning the American Legion Massachusetts Department Championship — the State Final Eight to you and me — Hanover Post 149 coach Dan Lambert joked about “when we repeat in 2009”.
Over the course of the tournament Hanover demonstrated that they indeed deserve to represent Massachusetts at the Northeast Regional in Bristol, Conn., this week, but if you had pick one of the teams that battled on the South Hadley High School diamond yesterday afternoon to be in Acushnet next August, the team in the red Post 104 uniforms wouldn’t be a bad bet.
It has to be a little be a little frustrating to reach for the brass ring three times in the last four years and come up empty, as Walpole has, especially when the team that denies you has only been in existence seven years. But Post 104 needs to be envious of no one as they once again demonstrated over the six-day tournament just why they are one of the state’s model programs.
“We certainly thought from Jump Street, from Game 1, that we had a legitimate shot to win the state championship, but a lot of teams feel that way at the beginning of the season, “ said Walpole coach Chris Costello. “Things have to line up for you and they just didn’t line up today and in this tournament. We scratched and clawed to get to this game and that was what we had left today, it just wasn’t enough, but hopefully well be back and we get over the hump and we’ll get the big one.”
In each of its three recent appearances Walpole has gotten a little bit farther, getting eliminated in two straight in 2005 before splitting four games in 2007, including a disappointing morning-afternoon doubleheader loss after begin the tournament 2-0.
With two days of rain playing havoc with the tournament this year and putting Walpole in similar position as last summer, Costello had a foreboding feeling Thursday night, knowing that despite its sparkling 29-1 mark all that the squad had worked for this year could evaporate in a matter of hours the next day.
And when Post 104 fell down 7-0 in the first inning Friday morning against Hanover en route to a 14-7 drubbing, it appeared that history might be about to repeat itself.
Walpole refused to let it happen a second straight year. Over his career in both a Post 104 and a Rebel uniform, Pat Nicholson developed a reputation as being as clutch as it gets at the plate. And while he only enhanced that image by torching postseason pitching at a over a .400 clip, he added to the lore with his work on the mound.
For the second time in the postseason, Walpole turned to the Brandeis right-hander with its season on the mound and he delivered, not only holding a Milford team that had pounded out 25 runs in its first two contest just two runs in a 12-2 win, but going all eight innings to give a pitching staff that had been taxed in the morning a break.
Oh, and he’d be brilliant back on the bump in the relief yesterday with the season hanging in the balance against Lowell.
And if you thought that Post 104 veteran manager Ralph White was a figurehead at this point in his career, the Milford game dispelled that notion quickly. White showed his team the fight for their tournament lives was going to start from the top as his took issue with call from his familiar third base coaching box and was quickly run from the game by umpire and former coaching rival Don Fredericks.
With Friday survived, Walpole put its fate in the hands of Sam Murray Saturday on three days rest against Weymouth. And really, was there any doubt that Post 104 would see Sunday with smooth southpaw on the hill? A typically-efficient 100-pitch complete game followed in a 3-2 win. Added in his opening-night gem against host Chicopee and Murray ended the postseason 5-0 with a save.
Want to know how Walpole felt last year? Ask Weymouth. The champs of District 6’s other side came into Saturday with a 2-0 mark and no doubt felt they were in as a good shape as anyone to bring home the crown. Two one-run losses later and Post 79 was headed down the Pike before the sun had set.
The hit that sent Weymouth home came off the bat of Joe Cabral, a familiar refrain in the postseason. The Post 104 second baseman had lifted his squad in the deciding Game 3 of the Hawkeye A.C. series that nearly cut the Walpole’s run shockingly short. His fourth and fifth RBI of the night turned the lights out on Szot Park opening night in a mercy-rule win over host Chicopee.
Mother Nature was far less merciful, battering Fortin Field with so much rain on Wednesday and Thursday that the venue was unplayable the rest of the week. The fact that Roger Gagnon and the rest of the tournament organizer managed to cobble together a schedule by using lightless East Longmeadow and South Hadley High that finished up in time to staff yesterday’s cutoff date was a minor miracle. If you told Walpole at the beginning of the week that it wouldn’t lose a game in Chicopee, Post 104 would have thought it would be packing for Connecticut right now.
Cabral was back in the spotlight yesterday morning. With Walpole once again staring elimination in the face, trailing Lowell 6-2 in the sixth, Post 104 rallied to send the game into extra innings, where Cabral found himself up with runners and the corners and one out. Cabral has scalded countless balls this summer, but he’ll remember the one traveled not more that a few feet more than any of those as his squeeze bunt plated the winning run in the 7-6 win.
It was the fitting way for the final Walpole win, a perfect example of preparation combined with execution with some selflessness thrown in, all Post 104 calling cards.
Nobody is going to call a 32-2 team a prohibitive underdog but playing in its fifth game in about 52 hours, the needle was approaching empty on the Walpole tank by the time it took the field against Hanover yesterday, which just happened to have perhaps the tournament’s most feared pitcher, Andrew Aizenstadt, ready to go basically on full rest.
The 10-0 loss ended with Tommy Ryan on the mound. Just freshly turned 15, the young left-hander has four years of eligibility left for Post 104. It won’t be the last pitch he throws at a State Final Eight.
“Losing (John) Phelan, Ricky Graham, Nicholson, (Matt) Romines, (Eric) Brown and (Billy) Hickey, I told our young guys this is how we have bounced back in the past, our young guys watch how our older guys play and f they didn’t learn how to play the game watching these guys then they’ll never learn how to play baseball because they guys are as good a group of older guys as we have ever had,” said Costello. “They played the game the right way, they are class acts and they are talented, I can’t be prouder to have coached them all this year.”
“Tom Ryan will take more out of this game and pitching seven or eight inning up here that pitching 40 innings in the zone, he had fantastic season, and Jon Kelly as well,” continued Costello. “These are both kids that didn’t even play varsity baseball this year and they came a long way in 35 games to the point where Kelly was DHing the state championship game and Tom Ryan giving us valuable innings in the Final Eight. Those are things that are going to help us turn over. We’re retuning Murray next year, we’ve got Cabral back and (Connor) Thornton but the young guys, again that experience is what going to keep us in the hunt for years to come.”
(Tom Fargo is Sports Editor of the Daily News Transcript. He can be reached at (781) 433-8372 or tfargo@cnc.com)
