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WHITE RIVER JUNCTION – Hanover High’s hunt for its first state baseball title will stretch into next year after the top-seeded Bears were upset, 8-6, by eighth-seeded Plymouth during Saturday’s NHIAA Division II quarterfinal game at the Maxfield Sports Complex.
“The whole thing’s disappointing, obviously,” said eighth-year Hanover coach John Grainger, whose visiting team beat Plymouth, 11-1, on May 15. “You don’t expect to go 14-2 and lose in the first (postseason) game with your best pitcher up.”
Hanover managed six hits and committed seven errors during a contest in which it seemed like nothing went the hosts’ way. Playing at Maxfield because of their waterlogged home turf in Norwich, the Bears attempted four diving, defensive plays and turned none of them into outs.
Plymouth (11-7), which entered having lost its last five games and six of its last seven contests, overcame a 4-0 deficit after four innings.
The Bobcats exploded for six runs during the fifth frame. Four of them came off Hanover starting pitcher Sam Sacerdote and two more off reliever Freddie Mierke. The latter faced four batters before also being pulled without recording an out.
The visitors executed two successful squeeze bunts and pulled the same move a third time, technically stealing home while Mierke made a pickoff throw to first base.
“That play almost never happens for you at home and trying to get it there just killed us” said an exasperated Grainger, who twice watched his team try to nab the runner at the dish instead of taking the more likely out at first.
The Bears scored single runs during the fifth and sixth innings but were retired in order during the seventh on two fly outs and a called third strike to end the game.
Sacerdote, who broke the thumb on his glove hand late in the regular season, allowed four hits and four runs, three of them earned, while striking out six Bobcats, walking two and hitting a batter. The senior’s injury prevented him from batting and left a hole in the Bears’ order.
“Sam wasn’t as sharp today as he normally was,” Grainger said. “Oliver Sperry and JoJo Drent stepped up and did a good job hitting in the third and fourth spots, but if you don’t have to change where they hit, they might have done even better.
“I can’t recall a game where we scored in five of seven innings and lost.”
Hanover dropped three of its last four games and was outscored during those setbacks by a combined 30-13.
Plymouth will face No. 4 Kingswood and No. 2 Hollis-Brookline will play No. 3 St. Thomas on Wednesday at Concord’s Memorial Field.
Notes: Hanover left seven runners on base while Plymouth stranded a whopping 15… The Bears’ poorly draining home field is schedule to be renovated this summer… Grainger said NHIAA Division II coaches have requested a revamped schedule that has each team play every other team at least once in next season’s schedule. Hanover faced bottom-half teams Lebanon and Monadnock twice each this spring but didn’t face top squads St. Thomas or Kingswood. “Most schools, even ones who like their schedule, don’t think there’s equity the way it is,” Grainger said… Hanover graduates Sacerdote, who’s headed to play at NCAA Division III Bowdoin, along with Ian Smith and Jack McGrath. Grainger said he believes Sperry, also an ice hockey goalie, is off to prep school, but that he hasn’t confirmed that move… Bears junior shortstop Jackson McBride, cut from Hanover’s varsity as a freshman, is headed back to Georgia to play club baseball for a second consecutive summer. His father, Hanover baseball assistant Pat McBride, is Dartmouth College’s senior managing director for athletics fundraising. His mother, Lori McBride, is the Big Green’s associate athletics director for external relations.
Tris Wykes can be reached at [email protected].
