BY RYAN O’CONNORMatt Woodmansee may be young in terms of age, but in terms of baseball maturity, he’s a proven veteran. The 16-year-old catcher was an integral part in the unexpected success and state title run of the first-year Bedford Post No. 54 junior American Legion team. In fact, Woodmansee, who dislocated a finger on his right ...

BY RYAN O’CONNORWeeks before Goffstown’s varsity baseball squad earned the first Class L title in program history, another group of Grizzlies celebrated a similar accomplishment. With a 5-1 victory against Salem, on May 26, the GHS JV team completed an undefeated season to capture its second-straight state crown. In fact, the last ...

BY RYAN O’CONNORThroughout the season, Matt Benson and his players committed to never look back, only forward. Now the Goffstown baseball coach has no choice but to glance into the past. He is, after all a state champion. Benson and the thirdseeded Grizzlies captured the school’s first Class L title with a dramatic 4-3 victory over ...

BY RYAN O’CONNORIf you had asked him two weeks ago if his Memorial baseball team would be playing in the Class L semifinals, Don Menswar would have been more likely to laugh than nod. Yet that’s exactly where the No. 15 Crusaders ended up, facing third-seeded Goffstown at Nashua’s Holman Stadium on June 11. And had it not been ...

BY RYAN O’CONNORAfter reaching the Class L finale as a No. 13 seed in 2007 and returning nearly the entire team, the outlook was bright for the Trinity baseball team this season. But after a 12-1 loss to fifth-seeded Nashua North in the Class L quarterfinals, Pioneers manager Ed Poisson admitted maybe the expectations outweighed the reality ...

BY RYAN O’CONNOR Dave Chase is the first to admit it. His seventh-seeded Hopkinton baseball team was hosting a first-round playoff contest, but the game was in jeopardy before the players even took the field. In fact, said Chase, it was in trouble a week prior, when the Hawks blew a 10-0 second-inning lead at home against ...

BY RYAN O’CONNORMatt Benson and his nine seniors know all too well how easy it is to trip and fall at the Class L championship threshold. Last year, Goffstown stumbled in the semifinals to upstart Trinity, a squad that entered the postseason as the No. 13 seed after a 10-12 regular season. With their collective hand knocking on the door ...

BY RYAN O’CONNORAs Pinkerton baseball manager Ron Manseau and his players boarded their bus, heads hung in defeat, a voice from behind called out. “Hey, did you guys catch something, or what?” “We caught something alright,” replied Manseau. “We caught lighting.” The shock came when the seventh-seeded ...

The Bedford High School varsity baseball team notched its first victory in dramatic fashion, edging Pelham, 5-4, on May 14 in Bedford. Mike Skilton delivered a oneout line drive to the gap in leftcenter field, plating Matt Woodmansee for the walk-off victory in the bottom of the seventh inning. James O’Brien fanned nine and scattered seven ...

BY RYAN O’CONNORJeff Miller is preaching shortterm memory. After all, the 2007 season offered few positives to hold onto. “The biggest thing with this team is we’re coming off a real terrible year last year. I mean, we went 0-15, we made a lot of mistakes, we averaged six errors a game last year, we had a team batting average of ...