June 22, 2011
HS notebook: Portsmouth (N.H.) keeps streak alive
by Roger Brown/
There were no losses this season, so now the question is this: Will the Portsmouth (N.H.) High School baseball team lose a game next season?
Portsmouth won its fourth consecutive state championship by beating St. Thomas (Dover) 9-6 in the Division II state championship game Saturday. The victory extended the program’s winning streak to 83 games – a national record.
Portsmouth, which completed its season with a 20-0 record, hasn’t lost since the 2007 season. The Clippers had six underclassmen in their starting lineup Saturday. The key losses are pitcher Keegan Taylor and outfielders Aidan O’Leary and Quinn McCann.
Taylor, who earned the win in this year’s championship game, was 10-0 this season and 25-0 during his high school career. O’Leary hit .434 with a team-high 13 stolen bases, and McCann batted .424.
Taylor (Northeastern) and O’Leary (Manhattan) have both committed to play Division I college baseball next season.
“We’ll have a decent nucleus of five or six guys coming back,” Portsmouth coach Tim Hopley said. “When you lose kids like (Taylor) and Aidan O’Leary it’s significant.”
The Clippers will have a veteran infield next season that will include second baseman Connor McCauley, who was hitting a team-high .439 entering the championship game.
Holt, who was 7-0 as a sophomore, will replace Taylor as the team’s No. 1 pitcher.
Portsmouth’s latest victory was one of its strangest. Because of a lightning delay, the game didn’t start until 10:25 p.m., and ended just before 1 a.m.
New Hampshire’s pitching rules also forced Hopley to get creative with how he used Taylor. Pitchers are allowed to throw a maximum of 16 innings in the tournament and Taylor had five innings of eligibility left entering the championship game. Taylor started the game on the mound, but also pitched four innings of relief.
Taylor moved from the mound to right field after the first inning. He moved back to the mound in the fourth, after Holt pitched two scoreless innings.
“It was something new,” Taylor said. “I’ve never sat that long. It must have been like 45 minutes that I was sitting out for. It was tough. I got a little cold.
“We were up in the air until five minutes before game time. I went to (Hopley) and said, ‘OK, I can do that.’ It was in my hands whether I wanted to do it or not.”
Hopley said until the start of the game was delayed by lightning he planned to start Holt, and bring Taylor in at the beginning of the third.
“I was concerned with them getting momentum early,” Hopley said. “Ricky being a sophomore in an unfamiliar setting – and certainly one that’s full of pressure – I thought it might be best to go with Keegan because he’s been on that stage before and he’s very familiar with the hitters he was going to be facing.
“I put (Taylor) in a tough spot. We went back and forth all week long on how we were going to handle the whole pitching thing.”
Taylor allowed six runs on six hits, struck out 11 and walked one. He struggled through
the fifth, when St. Thomas (12-8) scored five runs on four hits to take a 6-5 lead.
“Every single pitch I threw they were hitting,” Taylor said. “I didn’t have my best stuff, but every single thing I threw it seemed like they were putting it right back up the middle and crushing it.
“I was just missing up, and when I miss up that’s when my off-speed is not that good. I was hanging everything and fastballs were over the middle of the plate. It seemed like everything I threw over the middle was a hit. That inning when they hit me around I was a little frazzled – I admit that.”
Although Taylor put his team in a hole in the fifth, he pulled the Clippers out of it in the sixth. That’s when he broke a 6-6 tie by hitting a two-out, two-strike pitch just inside the right-field line for a three-run triple that capped the scoring.
The Clippers tied the game when Conor Trefethen started the inning with a double and ended up on third because of a throwing error. Kyle DiCesare followed with an RBI double that erased Portsmouth’s 6-5 deficit.
Taylor, who entered the game batting .355, had been hitting in the seventh spot in Portsmouth’s batting order, but was moved up to fifth for the championship game. Hopley said he made the change because of Taylor’s success at the plate during the tournament.
“Having a rough inning and then coming back with the bat – that was my time to come back to prove to the team that I was our leader and I was able to come up big for us,” Taylor said. “For Conor Trefethen to lead off and hit that triple and get us momentum was huge for us. That’s really what sparked that inning for us.
“This is the way anybody would imagine going out – having the game like I had. I was able to show a little leadership and help the team out. It topped it all off.”
Nashua North (Division 1), Campbell (Division III) and Sunapee (Division IV) won New Hampshire’s other state championships Saturday.
Worth the wait
Bill Pettingill’s 40th and final season as Newburyport (Mass.) High School’s baseball coach may have been his most satisfying.
Newburyport won this year’s Division 3 championship by beating Pioneer Valley Regional 9-4 Saturday. It was Pettingill’s 616th career victory and his first state title as a head coach.
Newburyport lost four of its first nine games, but completed its season with a 23-5 record.
Pettingill announced his retirement before the season began.
New England notes
Cheverus (Portland, Maine) won Maine’s Class A state championship by beating Lewiston 9-1 Saturday. It was the program’s first state championship … Waterville, St. Dominic and Greenville won Maine’s other state titles. Waterville repeated as the Class B champion by posting a 1-0 victory over Greely. Waterville’s Tim Locke pitched a complete game and scored the game’s only run. St. Dominic beat Calais 5-4 to win the Class C championship, and Greenville beat Katahdin 17-3 in the Class D championship game. ,,, Nicholas Lloyd hit a three-run home run in the fifth inning to help Mount Anthony (Bennington, Vt.) overcome a four-run deficit and defeat Rice 11-5 in Vermont’s Division I championship game. Missisquoi (Swanton) topped Burr & Burton (Manchester) in the Division II title game. … Westbrook (Maine) pitcher Scott Heath is scheduled to have Tommy John surgery later this month. Heath, Maine’s Gatorade Player of the Year, injured his throwing shoulder near the end of the regular season. He has committed to play at the University of Maine.
