BY RYAN O'CONNOR
Late in his first playoff game at the helm of a competitive baseball team, with his Concord American Legion junior squad tied 2-2 against top-seeded Derry and going into extra innings, Brian Drew turned to his predecessor, Averill Cate.
“He looked at me and said, ‘I’ve got more butterflies in my stomach now than when I was playing,’” said Cate. “I kind of got a kick out of it because games like that will certainly do that to you.”
Drew said he always knew there was a lot of pressure on baseball players in clutch situations; he simply never considered the constant onus on the coaching staff.
“I never imagined how strenuous it would be to make all those important decisions,” said Drew, until Cate, manager of the Concord American Legion senior baseball team, asked him to coach the first year junior squad, composed of up-and-coming high school players, age 17 and younger.
“I mean, the pressure was great and I loved it, but at the same time it’s just a totally different view of baseball than I’ve ever had before.”
Having coached Drew growing up, Cate said he would make a solid skipper.
“He had played for me back in the Babe Ruth days and then played for me a couple years when I started coaching the senior Legion program,” said Cate. “I asked him last year to help me out with the senior team and I was impressed, so this year I asked him if he’d be interested in taking over the junior program and be the head honcho.
“We were really impressed with him,” Cate continued. “He did a really nice job.”
Drew directed his squad to the first-ever American Legion junior baseball tournament, where it went on to lose the aforementioned tie game, 3-2, in extra innings.
Though there were challenges associated with guiding a first-year team through the regular season, Drew said he takes responsibility for many of the decisions that he said may have led to the Derry loss.
“The thing that hurt us the most was the calls by the coaches,” he said. “I didn’t call a hit-and-run when I should have or I didn’t tell have a guy bunt in the right situation, that kind of stuff.”
The players, on the other hand, stepped up, according to Drew.
“I told them, basically from the beginning, we’re a good enough team which has had our chances to beat the top teams, so if we were going to lose, we were going to beat ourselves and I think the players really understood what they had to do,” said Drew.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen them play so together all year. We made very few mental errors and did things well,” he continued. “It was, hands down, the best game we’ve played all year and that’s the way baseball is sometimes. You play your best game and lose.”
Still, Drew faced starting two middle infielders in the playoffs who hadn’t started there regularly during the season.
Michael Courchesne started at second base and Allenstown’s Nathan Derkacz played shortstop, both coming up big defensively, said Drew.
In the first inning, Hopkinton’s Matt Windhurst led off with a single and stole second before Epsom’s Connor Moroney moved him to third on a base hit.
Dan Solomon, of St. Paul’s School, laid down a suicide bunt to bring Windhurst home and give Concord the early 1-0 lead.
Derry came back in the bottom of the second to tie the contest, but in the fourth inning Courchesne took advantage of a shallow outfield, ripping a double over the head of the center fielder before Noah Solomon, who Drew said had been struggling with his bat, lined a double down the third-base line to plate the go-ahead run.
Derry answered, however and pushed the game into extra innings.
“We could taste the blood and were feeling the win, but their batters did a good job to work the counts and get on base when we weren’t,” said Drew.
In the eighth inning, the first of extra play, Concord put runners at first and second with no outs and moved them over on a sacrifice ground ball.
But a strikeout and a pop-out later, Concord’s threat had dissolved.
“That was one of those situations where we probably should have laid one down and I guess we missed the opportunity because we were worried about whether the batter would get the job done,” said Drew.
In the final frame, Noah Solomon walked before Windhurst tried and failed to lay down a bunt, fouling both attempts, then struck out swinging on the third pitch.
“Maybe we shouldn’t have been bunting in that situation, but you try to play technical baseball and try to manufacture runs when you can and sometimes it just doesn’t work out,” said Drew.
Moroney then walked and Dan Solomon was called out on what Drew termed as a debatable strike call, but one that had been consistently called that way all night.
Allenstown’s Zachary Cogswell, in the next at bat, made solid contact, but lined the ball right at the ranging second baseman.
In the ninth inning, with the bases loaded, Drew told his pitcher to throw a fastball, but failed to call for the proper outfield shift in time.
By the time the outfielders had received Drew’s orders and initiated their shift, the batter had lined the ball into the gap to knock the locals out of the tournament.
Jared Peick threw seven innings of seven-strikeout ball for Concord.
This year’s Concord squad sent four players to the junior Legion all-star game, including Hopkinton’s David Brandt and Windhurst, as well as Peick and Dan Solomon.