Sports
Fireworks Come Early for Stoughton Legion Baseball
The Stoughton Legion Baseball team upset Cohasset on the road Monday evening, earning an 8-2 win.
The following is submitted to Stoughton Patch:
After dropping a tough 8-3 decision on Sunday night against Quincy, was looking to bounce back on Monday night as they travelled to Scituate to play Cohasset.
Cohasset had defeated Stoughton 8-2 earlier in the season, but Post 89 had revenge on their mind.
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The Stoughton offense, led by Pat Jackman, Pat Raeke and Will McGrath put up 8 runs, while ace pitcher Mike Gallagher allowed just 2 hits and 2 runs to earn the complete game victory and give Post 89 their revenge in the form of an 8-2 victory.
With the win, Stoughton improves to 3-11.
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"This is how this team is capable of playing, game in and game out," Stoughton coach Jim Derochea said. "We [the coaches] have been telling them all season that they can compete with anyone if they play their game and now they are starting to believe in themselves."
Stoughton jumped out on top in the first inning as cleanup hitter, Pat Raeke (3 for 4, 2 RBI, 2 Runs) belted his first American Legion home run, deep over the center field fence to lift Stoughton to an early 2-0 lead.
Post 89 padded the lead in the second as they banged out 5 hits to extend the lead to 5-0. Will McGrath and Myles Comeau set the table with consecutive singles. After moving up a base on a ground out, Brian Crimmins scalded an RBI single for Stoughton's third run. Pat Jackman (4 for 5) followed with an RBI single to right field and Mike Gallagher capped the inning by helping his own cause with an RBI single for the 5 run cushion.
Gallagher ran into trouble in the fourth inning as Cohasset began the inning with back to back singles to put runners on the corners with no outs. After a steal of second base put two men in scoring position, Gallagher settled down, getting a ground out and sacrifice fly to push across two Cohasset runs before inducing a grounder to the right side to end the fourth. That's all Gallagher would yield as he was flawless the rest of the way.
Post 89 put the game away in the top of the seventh inning as Stoughton plated three more runs. Jack Kane, Pat Raeke and Kyle Phillips all singled to load the bases and Will McGrath (2 for 4, 2 RBI) followed with a clutch single through a drawn in infield to score Kane and Raeke. Two outs later Pat Jackman reached safely for the fourth time, knocking in Phillips with the 8th run of the game for Stoughton.
Gallagher set down the first 2 batters of the seventh inning quickly and center fielder Jovani Pires put the exclamation point on this one by making a spectacular running catch deep in the right center field gap to seal the victory.
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