Small Ball Pays off Big for Stoughton High Baseball in Win over Foxborough

Tied 4-4 in the bottom of the eighth inning Thursday afternoon at home, the Stoughton High baseball team had runners on second and third with just one out and pitcher Pat Jackman coming to the plate, looking to literally secure himself a win. 

He never had to lift the bat off his shoulders.

Foxbrough was in the process of intentionally walking Jackman to load the bases and set up a situation for a potential force out, but on what should have been ball four, Foxborough pitcher T.J. Notarangelo uncorked a wild pitch and Stoughton’s Mike Gallagher raced down the third base line to score the winning run, giving the Black Knights a 5-4 victory in extra innings.

Stoughton players mobbed Gallagher at home plate. They improve to 1-1 on the season, bouncing back from to Quincy. Foxborough falls to 0-1, losing their season opener.

“It’s a great win the way we got it done, to have a walk-off in the bottom of the inning is big, but we still have a long road ahead, some tough games coming up,” Stoughton coach Mike Armour said.

“It was a big win all around,” Jackman added. “Everyone contributed top to bottom; everyone stepped up to their role. It’s always good when you don’t have one hero, but nine kids chipping in all the time.”

Trailing Foxborough 4-2 heading into the bottom of the seventh inning, the Black Knights’ offense had been kept at bay since a two-run first inning; the Stoughton High baseball team was three outs away from a 0-2 start to the season.

Stoughton’s Mike Connelly crushed a pitch deep to centerfield in the bottom of the fifth, but fell victim to his team’s spacious outfield.  Pat Raeke was robbed by a sliding catch in centerfield by Foxborough’s Steve Fitzmaurice to end the inning.  The Black Knights stranded a runner on second in the sixth.

But in the seventh, Stoughton turned to small ball and took advantage of some Foxborough miscues to tie the game and send it into extra innings.

Jackman helped his own cause, reaching on a bunt to start the inning. He advanced to second on a balk and to third on a wild pitch. Will McGrath walked to put runners on first and third with no outs. Connelly grounded out, but Jackman came into score. Two batters later, McGrath came home to tie the game as Kevin Linehan was thrown out trying to steal second base.

Gallagher was hit by a pitch to lead off the bottom of the eighth; Eric McPherson lined one into left field; and Luca Venterosa laid down a sacrifice bunt to move Gallagher and McPherson into scoring position with one out.

“Little things like that, that’s what makes good teams,” Armour said of Venterosa’s sac bunt.

Gallagher later scored the winning run on the wild pitch.

“Defensively we need to improve both mentally and physically,” Foxborough coach Bill Sittig said. “I don’t have a problem with the physical errors—that stuff's going to happen. Mentally we have to know what we’re doing with the ball in different situations.”

“We’ve always focused on small ball, we’ve never been a huge power hitting team,” Stoughton pitcher Adam Kenney said. “When everything we practice in practice comes through in a game, it makes us feel great.”

Kenney (3 2/3 innings) and Jackman (4 1/3 innings) combined to pitch the entire game for Stoughton, successfully working out of jams along the way.

Foxborough scored single runs in the third, fourth and fifth innings, to turn a 2-1 deficit into a 4-2 lead, but stranded runners in all three innings, including leaving the bases loaded in the fourth and fifth innings.

“We had a chance to put them away, but we didn’t get that big hit,” Sittig said. “We took the lead and we had a chance to really step on their throat. We didn’t do the job and they ended up making more plays than us.”

Sean O’Malley, Connelly and Raeke had RBIs for Stoughton. O’Malley, Raeke and McPherson got on base three times apiece. McPherson had three stolen bases and Connelly threw out three Foxborough runners from the catching position.

Brandon Goold pitched well for Foxborough. After giving up two runs in the first, he shut down Stoughton in his final four innings of action, finishing with 81 pitches in five innings of work.

Nolgan Clagg, Brett Cresey, Jim Flaherty and Tim O’Halloran had RBIs for Foxborough.

Stoughton travels to Franklin on Monday for their first road game of the season. Foxborough travels to Canton on Monday.  Both games start at 3:30 p.m.