The Bromfield varsity baseball team continued its strong late-season performance this week, narrowly beating the Littleton Tigers at home, 4–3, Monday, May 23. Starting pitcher Jackson Harrigan went the full seven innings for the Trojans, capping that off with the game-winning RBI double in the bottom of the seventh. It was the team’s second straight victory, following its spectacular late-inning defeat of West Boylston the previous week.
At Monday’s game against Littleton, Harrigan started out well, striking out eight Littleton batters. The bottom half of the second inning began with back-to-back-to-back singles from Bromfield junior Cam Maddalone, sophomore Ian Hanson, and senior Brendon Keady to load the bases. After Littleton’s starter, Thomas MacGregor, managed to get the first out on an infield fly, Bromfield pulled back-to-back squeeze plays to score two runs, followed by a sacrifice fly to make the score 3–0.
In the top of the fourth, Harrigan ran into trouble after loading the bases on two errors and a walk. Littleton’s Jacob Yurkowski shot a groundball single up the middle, plating two runs to narrow the score to a 3–2 Bromfield advantage. The Tigers tied the game in the sixth when MacGregor hit a leadoff double to begin the frame, followed by a wild pitch and then a single by Matt Landers to tie the score at 3–3.
In the seventh, Bromfield had a scare when Littleton’s Patrick Ryan smashed a drive out to center field, just short of a home run, and he wound up with a double. But the Trojans made their way out of the inning without any damage to the score.
In the bottom half, freshman Lance Jarosz laid down a bunt single with one out and reached second on a groundout afterwards. Harrigan then came to bat and drove the first pitch into the right-center gap, scoring Jarosz and capping another walk-off victory for the Trojans.
Against West Boylston
Last week, the Trojans staged a remarkable comeback on Wednesday, May 18, in a home game against the West Boylston Lions, the first-place team in the Wachusett D League. The Trojans scored three runs in the bottom of the seventh and ended the game with a 4–3 walk-off victory.
As the bottom of the seventh began, the score was 3–1 Lions, and Bromfield had gone hitless for six innings. Junior Cam Maddalone started the rally for the Trojans with a double to right, ending West Boylston pitcher Andy Proietti’s no-hit bid. Rattled, Proietti hit the next batter, Ian Hanson, sending him to first base. Brendon Keady followed with a single to load the bases for the next batter, pitcher Kindred Atwood. Proietti threw a wild pitch, allowing Maddalone to score and bringing the score to 3–2. Then Atwood launched a sacrifice fly to center, scoring Hanson and moving Keady to third. The score was now 3-3. Next up was sophomore Rory Van Dorpe, who attempted but failed to pull off a squeeze play that would have scored the winning run. But he came through in the end with a single to right field, scoring Keady and clinching the walk-off win. “Pretty spectacular,” Van Dorpe said of his hit.
With a 7–9 overall record for the season and a 3–7 league record, the Trojans were in fifth place in their six-team league. They were next scheduled to play St. Bernard’s in a nonleague away game Wednesday, May 25.
Michael Jarosz is a 2015 Bromfield graduate.
