Stoughton High Baseball Looks to Bounce Back After Loss to Oliver Ames

In what was the first of two games this season between the Stoughton High baseball team and Oliver Ames, OA was able to come away with a 9-5 home victory. 

The loss drops the Knights to 3-4 on the season, while the Tigers improve to a perfect 6-0 record.

Stoughton started junior Michael Gallagher where Oliver Ames countered with junior Chris Servello.

Stoughton was able to get on the board in the top of the second with a double to deep right field by junior Pat Raeke scoring freshman Jake Gibb, who singled in the previous at bat. 

In the bottom of the second inning Oliver Ames responded scoring three runs of their own. The lead off hitter Greg Cummings reached base on an error followed by walks by Brian Holmes and Nick Charleston as well as a hit by Dave Mackinnon to give the Tigers a 3-1 lead after 2.

Stoughton was able to cut the OA lead in half in the top of the third on a RBI single by senior captain Mike Connelly, scoring junior Jiovani Pires to make the score 3-2.

But in the bottom of the third Oliver Ames broke the game open sending 11 batters to the plate, and scoring six times to increase the margin to 9-2 in favor of the Tigers. Brandon Gagliardi's double and singles by Cummings, Michael Ferrara, and Andrew Mancini where highlights of the inning for Oliver Ames.

The score remained 9-2 until the top of the 7th when Stoughton put a little 2 out rally together to get themselves back in the game. A Jiovani Pires single followed by senior captain Pat Jackman being hit, as well as a Will McGrath single, and Mike Connelly double pushed the lead to 9-5 before Oliver Ames was able to close out the victory.

Servello pitched 6 and 2/3 innings for Oliver Ames recording the win with a solid outing.

After the game Stoughton coach Mike Armour talked Gallagher's performance on the mound for Stoughton on Monday afternoon.

"Mike has been so good pretty much every time out there for us. I think a couple pitches might not have gone his way early, OA hit the ball a little bit, and we also made a couple errors behind Mike early which didn't help things." 

Armour said, "Mike will be just fine. I think today just wasn't his day today and every pitcher is bound to have them, I can't remember the last time he had one of those."

Armour then talked about how the big third inning by Oliver Ames set the tone for the rest of the game.

"In baseball, when a team has a big inning like that, usually that team wins and the other team looses. And despite that today it was fine to see our guys have a little fight in the end there. We see them again and hopefully next time we can right the ship."

Armour enjoyed watching his team stay resilient and not give up until the last out was made.

"I think it's our captains Pat Jackman, Mike Connelly, and Will McGrath, who have been here for four years. They take a lot of pride and ownership in this team, and they demand that. This is a great group of guys and we are starting to come together." 

Armour continued, "It's a long year and even though winning is a lot more fun then loosing, I think we will be just fine."

Stoughton next plays on Wednesday, hosting Milford, while Oliver Ames travels to Sharon in what will both be key Hockomock League Davenport Division matchups.