North Attleboro Takes Advantage of the Free Pass in Win Over Stoughton High Baseball

The young Stoughton High Baseball team looked to stop their three-game league losing streak when they traveled to North Attleboro Monday afternoon. The Red Rocketeers (6-2 overall) were in first place in the Kelly-Rex Division (large schools) Division of the Hockomock League and had gotten off to a strong start to the season.

Stoughton needed a good pitching performance and a near flawless effort to take the victory, but it didn’t happen. The pitching for the Black Knights faltered and the team gave up seven consecutive walks in the first inning, which led to four North Attleboro runs, all without a hit.

The Black Knights never recovered and lost, 6-1. Stoughton now falls to 1-5 overall and 1-4 in the league and remains 1-1 in the Davenport Division (small schools) play.

“We never can mind when our opponent comes out and beats us and earns a win, but today we beat ourselves and there is no excuse for that at this level,” said Stoughton coach Mike Armour. “We’re young and I still believe in this team, but this game was frustrating and we can’t allow what happened today to happen again.”

Stoughton has very little time to get back on its feet, playing three games in three days starting Wednesday with a home game against league rival Sharon, followed by a non-league home game against O’Bryant on Thursday and a league contest at Canton on Friday.

Senior captains and pitching aces Adam Kenney and Sean O’Malley struggled in the never-ending first inning. Will McGrath, a sophomore, came in to end the first inning and pitched into the fourth, with a very effective effort.

McGrath also did well with the bat, scoring the lone run for the Black Knights. McGrath had a lead off walk in the fourth inning, stole second and scored on an RBI single by catcher Mike Connelly. Along with McGrath, Connelly was a bright spot for Stoughton going 3 for 3 with three singles.

Stoughton could only muster four hits, all singles, throughout the contest, with outfielder Eric McPherson connecting for Stoughton’s only other hit. Brian Kaplan came into pitch and also did well over the final 2+ innings.

Stoughton cut the deficit to 4-1, but North Attleboro came right back, in their half of the fourth inning, with a home run to gain back the four-run lead. The Red-Rocketeers added another run in the sixth inning to account for the final score.

“We didn’t show up for this game, but the good thing is that we have plenty of time to get this right and we have the talent to do it,” Armour said. “We can look back at this as our low point and know that there will be days like this, and build upon it and keep getting better so we never beat ourselves again.”

The Black Knights had previously lost three games by heartbreaking results. A close 4-2 decision to a strong Division-1 team, a 2-1 loss to defending league champion and then undefeated , with the winning run by OA forced in by a hit batter, and a 3-2 defeat to with the game ending when the would be tying run for Stoughton was thrown out at the plate.

“We have played some very tough opponents to very close games, so we have proven that we can play with any team, its just time for us to get some breaks, stop beating ourselves and continue to believe we can beat any team and play as hard as we can,” Armour said.

Stoughton will try to turn its fortunes around at home against Sharon on Wednesday afternoon.