Week #4 Discussion - May 3rd Foreward

I for one am disappointed in Nashua North's performance so far this season. They have not played that well and have lost 3 games to teams that were below .500 when they lost to them. 3-3 record is not going to cut it. This is a big week as they have 4 games. Pitching will be spread thin and be at a premium. The defense must play better and the bats must heat up. Concord tonight and Spaulding tomorrow on the road with Timberlane at home on Wednesday and then the rival game with South on Friday night at Holman. You'd hope they'd go 3-1 at worst this week.

Looks to me like Nashua North is right where they should be. They beat a strong Londonderry team and lost to Alvirne when Alvirne got a great pitching performance from Terrill.

Looking at the standings and the game scores I think there is a lot of parity. Other than a couple of teams at the top and a few at the bottom, it seems almost any team can win on any day IF they have their top pitchers going and IF they show up to play that day.

Portsmouth - 7
Bedford - 4

A lot to talk about after this one. The streak is alive - btw - I'm pretty sure the streak started with a very well played 4-0 win against Bedford in Bedford's very first varsity game when they were just sophomores and freshman. Nate Jones was brilliant for the middle 5 innings. Bedford did jump out to a 1-0 lead in the bottom of the 1st. Mike Laflamme was hit by a pitch and stole second. Matt Woodmansee drew a walk on a 9 pitch at bat. Laflamme scored on a Joey Maher liner through the left side of the infield. Jones induced a double play 2 pitches later and then set the next 15 Bedford batters down in a row. He did it mostly by inducing ground balls - 13 of the 15 to be exact. He only had 2 K's on the day, but he was pitching a gem.

Meanwhile, Lucas Olen (hard luck Olen) was bringing it pretty good for Bedford. He went 6 full, threw 99 pitches and gave up 5 runs, but only 1 was earned. He struck out 3 an issued 2 walks. Jack Gonsalves went 3-5 for Portsmouth, but it was the #5 hitter on down that did most of the damage. #5 hitter Aiden O'Leary's day was representative - led off the 2nd, reached on an error and scored the first run. Led of the 4th, reached on a dropped 3rd strike and scored the second run. He did drive in the 4th run when hit a bomb to very deep right/center field that featured an over the shoulder catch by Bedford centerfielder Laflamme. And he led off the all important top of the 7th with an infield hit (great hustle) to the left side and scored the 6th run.

Bedford came to bat in the bottom of the 7th down 7-1. Woodmansee led of with a sharp single to center, followed by a wind aided single by Maher to left, followed by a sharp grounder through the left side by Mike Skilton. Woodmansee scored on a fielder's choice by Jeff Gancarz and then Maher scored on a throwing error by the ss on the attempted double play. Sophomore Ryan Mossman then drilled an 0-2 liner to the right field corner to score Gancarz. Mossman appeared to pull up a little lame going into second. With the Portsmouth bullpen working hard to get ready, Nate Harington ripped a single to center that Gonsalves charged and threw a pee to the catcher that had Mossman by a fair margin for the second out - ouch!! Appropriately, Jones induced 1 final ground out to end the game.

Final analysis - Portsmouth is still one of the top couple of teams in Class I and Jones sets the tone from the hill. They are an extremely well coached team that carry themselves like the winners that they are. Bedford is still learning how to make the most of their talent. Stay tuned to see if that happens before the season is over.

quote:

Originally posted by Will O.:
Figured it may be time to start a new thread. Some Big games this week. Portsmouth/Bedford, Goffstown/Trinity, and some other good ones.

Does everyone think the season is going according to plan? Surprises? Any predicts for Top 8 (Home Playoff Game), 2nd 8 and bottom 4.

I'll guess Goffstown, Londonderry, Lebanon, St. TA and Portsmouth get 2 home playoff games and West narrowly misses out on playoffs. Now, that is going out on a limb!

Some interesting trends......Trinity off to a better than expected start.

Class L seems to have about 14 Teams that are not too far apart. Much Parity here in Class L (should we start calling it D-I now?) so far.

I'm prety sure it would be Class EFGH. Thats the Class between D & I.

Heard Nick Poore threw a no hitter last night for Salem, I don't have many details other than he also had 11ks. Anyone at the game?

From the Nashua Telegraph...
Salem 3, Alvirne 0

In 28 years as a varsity baseball coach, Mike Lee’s Alvirne teams have never been no-hit, until Monday.

Salem junior Nick Poore, who has already verbally committed to Boston College, came within one error of a perfect game, throwing just 73 pitches and striking out 11. Alvirne got a strong pitching effort in a losing cause from Mike Falcone, who gave up just five hits and one earned run. The Broncos committed seven errors to fall to 4-5.

I'm prety sure it would be Class EFGH. Thats the Class between D & I.[/QUOTE]

HAHA.


The NH HS baseball coaches assoc. says the Divisions are no longer letters, i.e L, I,S etc... but rather 1,2,3,4.....

The NHIAA is yet to follow suit. Is the change official?

If anyone gets a chance to go to the Hopkiton-Somersworth game in Somerworth tomorrow, I am the assistant coach for Somerworth.Please get my attention and introduce yourself. I will be the ugly guy with the goatee wearing #7. I really enjoy reading everyones posts and would love to put a face with some of the names.

Some good games out there today...Weds.

St. TA vs. Bedford
Central-BG
Merr-Dover
Alvirne-Keene
Exeter-Goffstown

Send the news and scores along

I am at Bedford v St Thomas top 4 Bedford is up 6-0 Maher is on the hill for Bedford looks good

I was at the Bedford game - they won 10-0. I was impressed with Maher, a tall lanky kid and he was throwing gas. I noticed a couple of college guys there and a few guns on him. He shut St Thomas down pretty good and only gave up a couple of hits.

Bedford got a quick 6 in the first and Maher coasted from there. Bedford pecked away and got the 10 run win in the bottom of the 6th.

NHFan, I was one of the guys behind the plate with a gun, had Maher topping out at 89mph, which he hit many times. He really had his stuff today, looked great against a very strong offensive team. I saw SNHU and Colby Sawyer College also in attendence.

NHFan and GSBA were right on with their reports from the Bedford / St. Thomas game. Joey Maher coupled with a huge 1st inning for the Bedford offense were the stories in this game. Maher limited the potent St. Thomas offense to 0 runs on 2 hits with 4 K's in 6 innings. He got it done on 79 pitches and his defense played an error free game behind him. The Bedford offense jumped on St.Thomas for 6 runs in the bottom of the first. Bedford finished with 10 runs on 13 hits led by Maher(3-3,Intentional Walk,1R), Kevin White(3-4,1R,2RBI), Mike Skilton(2-4,1R,1RBI) and Jeff Gancarz(2-4,1R,1RBI). Consider that St. Thomas has averaged 13+ runs per game and yielded only 3 runs per game in compiling a 7-0 record before today's game.

St. Thomas and Portsmouth are still the teams to beat in Class I and Lebanon, Souhegan and Con-Val are off to great starts - Maher and Bedford are starting to register on the radar. It should be fun to see how it plays out over the next several weeks.

quote:

Originally posted by Granite State Baseball Association:
NHFan, I was one of the guys behind the plate with a gun, had Maher topping out at 89mph, which he hit many times. He really had his stuff today, looked great against a very strong offensive team. I saw SNHU and Colby Sawyer College also in attendence.

Mike - I spoke with SNHU coach after the game and he confirmed your readings. Said Joey was consistently upper 80's, topping at 91 on some pitches late in the game. They had the gun on him the entire game.

Goffstown vs Merrimack is being played today at Merrimack instead of tomorrow due to Jr Prom for G-Town. I'm in LA and unfortunately can't be there.

Is Bedford's Maher a junior or senior?

Joey is a Junior.

Trinity ManchVegas-West re-scheduled to next Tuesday. Do not know why.

It puts the T-Baggers in a tough position next week. 4 Games, including @ Londonderry, @ Salem and Nashua North -home.

Next week will define their season. Are they a Top 5,6 Seed team or a middle-of-the-Pack team. We'll know next week.

Still a lot of parity in the middle. Seems next week is "moving week". S/B fun.

Wow thats a tough road next week for Trinity!

This is a good game summary of the Milford/Souhegan game from Wednesday.
http://www.nh-highschoolsports...ver-milford#more-779
Souhegan V. Milford
It comes from a relatively new website, http://www.nh-highschoolsports.com/ hosted by Joe Marchelena, former staff writer for the Nashua Telegraph. I think he's still doing some free lance stuff for them, but most of his local sports stories are published here. He's got a good amount of high school baseball content.

Souhegan takes on Kingswood at FisherCat Stadium at 4:15 today to try to stay undefeated.

Some good games on the Docket today.

North-South, BG-Alvirne, Londonderry-Pinkerton.

Curious what the deal is with BG's slow start. I know they had been focusing on this year's Class for a few years and that seemed to cause some disruption last year. Are they off to a slow start, injuries, bad luck or did the coach rely on this group too much? May be a combination of things. It just seems that they were supposed to have a better season. Hopefully, they can turn it around.

If they don't, is the coach on the hot seat?

Somersworth-Farmington game today should be a good one. Farmington only has one loss and it was in extra innings to Somersworth.

Manchester Memorial finished the week strong and has their record back at .500. After throwing away Monday's game they regrouped and won on Wednesday and Friday.

The wins came from 2 complete games by pitchers Steve Schack and Tim Sullivan and solid defense by all.

On Wednesday Steve pitched his second complete game win of the season, a 4 -0 victory for Memorial over Spaulding. He struck out 10 batters and stayed strong the entire game. After 4 scoreless frames Domingo Cruz lined a double to left scoring runners from 2nd and 3rd. Mike Torres batted next and singled to left to drive in Cruz. In the 6th Zach Hartshorn doubled moved to 3rd on a ground out and came home on a passed ball to complete the scoring.

On Friday Tim Sullivan struck out 10 in a complete game win over Manchester Central. He allowed only one earned run and no walks on 82 pitches and had 2 hits.

The bats were alive for Memorial on Friday with hits from Tim Gregiore, Bill Dubois, Luke Reynolds, Domingo Cruz, Jake Mills, Mike Torres, Seth Lafay and Tim Sullivan.

Wow, what a week. When the schedule came out and i saw that we had to play Campbell, Hopkinton and Farminton all in one week, I thought to myself I hope we don't get swept.If we win won good, two would be very nice. As the hitting coach to come out of a week like this against some of the top teams in Class M, and score 37 runs in those three games, I'm going to break my arm trying to pat myself on the back, but heck our boys deserve some props for what they accomplished this week.
But as we said after the game tonight, nobody cares how good you were in the middle of May, How well you do in the first and middle of June is all that counts.

North had a good night at the plate beating South 16-4 in a mercy rule game. North put up 8 runs in the 1st inning and put up 16 hits in a shortened game. Morency got the win for North and pitched well as South never going offensively. North was led by Guidice, Turner, Breen, Mcgowan, Tarintino as all had multiple hit nights.
Hickey started for South and got the loss. Nashua had a great showing of Highschool baseball fans as there was a huge crowd that came out to see the rivalry at Holman Stadium.

Great pitchers duel yesterday at FisherCat Stadium.

Souhegan sophomore Terry Dugdale and Kingswood senior Jeff Runnals each pitched 8 innings in an extra inning game that ended with Souhegan winning 5-2 in 9 frames.

Dugdale pitched eight innings, scattered three hits, allowed one run (none earned), while striking out eleven. Sophomore Robby McCormick pitched a scoreless 9th to close out the game. For Kingswood, Jeff Runnals struck out nine and scattered six hits allowing three runs for the tough luck loss.

Souhegan is now 9-0 and will face Bedford, in Bedford, on Wednesday.

Wish I knew that Souhegan game was at Fishercat Park, went to the JV game for a little bit then over to BG vs. Alverine. Really wanted to see Dugdale pitch.

Is Goffstown a paper tiger? 10-1, but only one win against a Class L team with a winning record @ home against Nahus South. The rest of their schedule has been cream puffs. It's that time of season when the cream rises to the top.

You can only play the teams on your schedule:
4/12/10 at Bedford (W 12 - 1)
4/13/10 at Bishop Guertin (W 7 - 0)
4/20/10 at Manchester Central (W 7 - 1)
4/21/10 Alvirne (W 9 - 6)
4/23/10 at Concord (W 12 - 2)
4/26/10 Timberlane Regional (W 8 - 4)
4/28/10 at Nashua South (W 15 - 9)
4/30/10 Pinkerton Academy (L 7 - 8)
5/3/10 at Trinity (W 8 - 0)
5/5/10 Exeter (W 7 - 5)
5/6/10 at Merrimack (W 16 - 1)


Wins vs. Trinity, Nashua South, Alvirne, BG, and a very talented Bedford squad. I still think Nash North is the team to beat but Goffstown is tough.

I coached the Dover team when the Junior class 2011 were in Cal Ripken every year it was always Nashua North, Nashua South, Londonderry and Dover in the final four. Salem and Goffstown obviously don't play Cal ripken, but these six teams that I have mentioned will rise to the top of the standings. Dover is probably still a year away.

Paper tiger? Hardly. They are a very good team that is locked in at the plate right now. Riley Palmer is having a Player of the Year season and hardly gets any recognition...hits for the cycle last week and barely a mention. Like SMAN said, you play the schedule they give you. I guess we'll see what everyone is made of come playoff time. It should be a fun month!

Nashua North plays Pinkerton tonight @ 7pm at Holman. Should be a good game.

Mother nature is going to mess up a few games this week with rain forecast for Wed and Friday this week.

You should have said something about Riley's cycle that seems post worthy. The term "gets no recognition" or "nobody's talking about him" gets thrown around on this board a lot but people can only contribute what they see or hear about. Its up to everyone to keep the discussions going.

Riley is a fantastic player he came out for the Showcase Leauge but after seeing the schedule said he couldn't do it due to hockey commitments. But he still came to some games as a fan, one time I was coaching and I turned around and he was sitting in my dugout. Those are good seats must have a great ticket agent.

Congratulations to Riley Palmer. Our son played against him in LL and Legion tournament. Always looked like an excellent player to me.

With the year he is having hope somebody nominated him of Gatorade POY, sounds like he should be a front runner for this award.

NH baseball reputation note, we were at Maryland this weekend for official visit. Pitching coach said he played in minors against a couple of guys from NH and his teammates made fun of them saying they didn't know we played baseball in NH.

Glad to see Riley and others will be changing that perspective real soon.

Monty,

Who are the up and comers on Portsmouth looking to fill the shoes of the seniors that will be moving on? Anyone having a stand out season?

Goffstown is NO Paper Tiger. They were Legit last year. Basically got everybody back. I felt going into the year, they would be the team to beat. Good Club.
I also thought Nashua North would be very good with all of their returnees. Based on last year...Edge Goffstown. But, you never know how the kids would develop. We'll see the next few weeks. I'd be surprised if NN and Goffstown are not in the Final 4. I look for Goffstown to win regular season by a game or 2 over NN.
Playoffs in Class L have usually been less predictable.

Got word of a huge win today for Trinity over Londonderry 6-2. Sophomore Mike Beaudet threw a complete game for his third win of 2010 on only 83 pitches. Number 9 batter, Jake Goldstein added three hits on the night for the Pioneers.

SMan,

Soph Matt Feeney has done a great job at third and hit well for first year varsity player, biggest surprise of this year. Keegan Taylor has done a nice job of pitching, not over powering but around the plate and changes speeds very well. Soph Connor Threfethan done a good job of hitting (3 hits today), struggled a bit behind the plate at beginning of the year but has improved with each game. Soph Connor MacCauley has hit well (5 for 5 in his last AB) but is fighting for playing time against a deep roster.

Soph Billy Hartman has done well at SS. Jr's Adian O'Leary and Quinn McCann good players with power but need to be a bit more consistent at the plate.

That's my take on Portsmouth of the future.

Bedford defeated Pelham today 9-0 behind a complete game 1 hitter by Lucas Olen. Olen only allowed 4 base runners while striking out 11, walking only 1 and hitting 2. The Bedford offense was paced by Woodmansee (2-5, 2R, 1 RBI), Maher (1-3, Sac, 2 RBI), Skilton (2-3, 1R, 2 RBI), Jeff Gancarz (2-3, 1R, 1RBI), and White (2-4, 1R, 2RBI) Laflamme, Walsh, Ryan Gancarz and Mossman all added hits.

Bedford hosts undefeated and 3rd ranked Souhegan Wednesday.

North win?