NORTH EASTON, Mass. - His teammates affectionately refer to him as “Mr. Saturday,” but Oliver Ames junior Andrew Mancini acted more like a “Mr. Friday” today, as his 3 RBIs proved to make all the difference in the seventh seeded Tigers’ 5-4 defeat of the tenth seeded Pembroke Titans in nine innings in the First Round of the Division II South MIAA State Tournament.
OA got off to a hot start, posting three runs in the bottom of the first inning to take a 3-0 lead out of the gate. Singles from two of their captains – junior shortstop David MacKinnon and senior catcher Matt Harding – positioned the Tigers to capitalize on a balk from Pembroke pitcher Luke Nagle that scored MacKinnon from third base. But then Mancini came in batting cleanup, and did just that, hammering a homerun to right field to increase their lead.
“We call him ‘Mr. Saturday’ but today’s not Saturday it’s Friday,” joked MacKinnon about Mancini. “He’s one of the most clutch hitters on our team. That was one of the farthest balls I’ve seen hit and in that situation coming through.”
It looked like it might be a short outing for Nagle at first, but the Titans’ hurler quickly regained his composure and didn’t allow the Tigers to score again for the next four innings. In the meantime, his team found their own offensive stride, as a steady string of Pembroke singles produced one run and got them on the board in the second inning.
“I think we saw a great high school baseball game tonight,” said Oliver Ames head Coach Leo Duggan. “Nagle, he’s a pretty good pitcher; I mean he’s a horse. He did a great job today and I think he was throwing harder at the end than at the beginning.”
With the Tigers leading 3-1, both teams were quiet in the third, but the Pembroke bats broke free again and the Titans pulled even with OA at three runs apiece by the end of the fourth. Then, Pembroke notched one more (unearned) run in the fifth off some bobbled fielding exchanges and pulled ahead 4-3.
It didn’t take long for Oliver Ames to strike back, though, as junior Brad Fleming evened things up at 4-4 with just one swing of his bat – blasting a deep solo homerun to leftfield to lead off the sixth inning, before Nagle forced three quick outs to prevent further bleeding.
“Brad Fleming, I mean that was an absolute bomb,” said Duggan of the critical hit. “Last year we lost to Newton and a kid hit one halfway up the hill so I think that’s payback.”
After 6 1/3 solid innings on the mound from OA senior captain David Holmes, head coach Leo Duggan turned things over to MacKinnon as his starter’s pitch count climbed over the century mark.
“It’s exciting, I’ve been waiting a few years for this,” said Holmes after his impressive performance on the mound. “I’m just emotionally drained.”
Nagle, too, had tossed more than 100 pitches by the end of the seventh inning but Pembroke’s skipper opted to stick with him as the game rolled over into extra innings.
MacKinnon and company retired Pembroke’s side in order in the eighth, giving the Tigers’ control of their own destiny in the bottom of the inning. But neither junior Mike McMillan’s single, nor a drawn walk from his younger brother John, were able to be converted by OA.
Pembroke threatened again in the top of the ninth, loading the bases off a single, a hit-by-pitcher, and an intentional walk of Nagle, who amazingly was still in the game after tossing eight frames already at that point, and finished with more than 140 pitches over his nine innings.
“I wasn’t going to lose to that Nagle kid,” Duggan mused of his decisions to intentionally walk the Pembroke hurler in both the seventh and ninth innings. “That kid’s a great hitter, why should I let him win? So I thought it was smart.”
But MacKinnon’s focus sharpened – as it seemed to every time the stakes got high – and OA escaped the jam unscathed.
“Honestly when people get on base I just force myself to make a pitch,” explained MacKinnon of his ability to dial in in the biggest of situations. “[When] bases are loaded, I’m able to bear down.”
By the bottom of the ninth though, “Mr. Saturday” had had enough baseball for one Friday afternoon. Mancini stepped to the plate for a fifth time in the game and punched a walk-off RBI single to shallow right to score MacKinnon – who’d been intentionally walked just two batters prior – from third base to break the stalemate.
“Andrew could be a great hitter,” said Duggan of Mancini. “He came through; the big at bat was at the end and he came through. We try to get him to cut down his swing sometimes and on that last at bat all that’s all we wanted to do is get it through.”
The win sends OA on to the quarterfinals where they’ll meet second seeded Hingham on Monday at 4 p.m.
“We’re going to get [Hingham’s] ace, we know that,” said MacKinnon. “But they’re probably not going to pitch better than that kid [Nagle], that was one of the best pitchers we’ve seen all year. His arm is going to be hanging for the next two weeks.”
Some might suspect such a hard-fought game to have taken a lot of the Tigers as they head into the next round of tournament play, but MacKinnon sees the battle for survival as more of an advantage moving forward.
“We’re definitely encouraged,” said MacKinnon. "We were having trouble getting timely hits and Mancini came through twice; Fleming came through with the bit hit. So we might take this. We lost the last two years in the first round, and I think we have a chance to go far now.”
Holmes agreed with his teammate that though the win was tough to come by, the experience will make himself a tougher pitcher and Oliver Ames a tougher team down the stretch.
“A win like this is going to motivate us a lot and hopefully we can build off it.”