The last time they took the field as teammates, David Drouin and Ben Bengtson helped Concord’s Post 21 win an American Legion senior state championship. This spring the pair of local products has helped the University of Hartford baseball team to the best record in America East.
The two were technically teammates last year when Bengtson, a 2014 Concord High graduate, arrived as a freshman. But Drouin, a 2013 Merrimack Valley grad, missed the entire season after undergoing Tommy John surgery. Drouin is back on the mound now, however, and Bengtson is the starting shortstop for the 10-5 Hawks.
Drouin underwent surgery near the end of what was a successful freshman season and didn’t throw another competitive pitch for 20 months. Hartford Coach Justin Blood wanted to take things slowly with Drouin this season, but the 6-foot-2, 200-pound right hander from Boscawen made that difficult.
“We didn’t start him in the weekend rotation because we wanted to ease him into it, but that only lasted one week,” said Blood, a Swanzey native who went to Franklin Pierce and spent time as a pitcher in the in the Seattle Mariners organization. “He came out and performed very well the following two weekends, so he’s definitely moving in the right direction.”
After four appearances, three starts and 20 innings, Drouin has a 2-1 record and a 2.25 ERA, the third best mark on the team. He’s posted 13 strikeouts, but he’s also walked 12. Blood thinks Drouin’s control will return with a little more time on the mound and he knows Drouin is going to stay in the starting weekend rotation.
“Oh yeah, he’s one of our best guys,” Blood said. “I expect him to just keep getting better.”
That’s happening for Bengtson this spring and the Concord High product already had a pretty good freshman season. He was named to the 2015 America East All-Rookie Team after hitting .269 with 24 RBI and a .365 slugging percentage in 42 starts, mostly at third. This year Bengtson is hitting .292 (fourth on the team) with a team-high 12 RBI and .438 slugging (third on the team), and he has made a smooth transition to shortstop.
“He’s a very athletic and strong and gifted kid, so much of what he had to work on last year and still is working on now just has to do with harnessing and controlling all of those skills,” Blood said. “He’s definitely taken a good step forward in his sophomore year and he’s one of our best guys in the lineup every day.”
He was definitely the best guy in the lineup on March 18 against Albany. In the bottom of the seventh he delivered a two-run single to tie the game at 6-6 and in the bottom of the ninth he had a two-out, two-strike, walkoff single to give the Hawks a 7-6 win that was part of a 4-1 week.
“It’s definitely been a good start to the year,” Blood said. “We have Dave back and Ben’s sophomore class is a pretty talented class, and now they’re a year older and performing at closer to what we expected out of them when we came in.”
The University of New Hampshire announced on Wednesday that Hopkinton’s Brittany Marshall was one of three student-athletes to receive a 2016 UNH Student Award.
Marshall, a sophomore on the field hockey team, will receive the Helen Duncan Jones Award at a May 10 ceremony. The award goes “to the sophomore woman showing the greatest promise of outstanding achievement in American citizenship, leadership and scholarship” in the College of Engineering and Physical Sciences.
The 2014 Hopkinton High graduate was named to the 2015 ZAG Field Hockey/NFHCA Division I National Academic Squad and also earned NFHCA Scholar of Distinction recognition for recording a cumulative grade-point average of at least 3.90 through the Fall 2015 semester. In 2014 she was named to the National All-Academic Squad and was on the America East Commissioners Honor Roll.
It was announced on Monday that former Concord High basketball coach Paul Cormier has stepped down as the head coach of Dartmouth’s men’s basketball team.
Cormier had two stints as the head man for the Big Green – 1984-91 and 2010-2016. He had a combined record of 142-211 during those 13 season in Hanover, including a 10-18 record last year.
“We are grateful to Paul for his combined 13 years of dedicated service to Dartmouth basketball,” Dartmouth Director of Athletics and Recreation Harry Sheehy said in a press release. “He has worked tirelessly to improve our competitiveness, and he leaves the program in better shape than he found it. We wish him all the best.”
Cormier’s first job as a head coach was at Concord High, where he led the Crimson Tide from 1975-78. He was also a head coach at Fairfield University for seven years (1991-98) and was an assistant at Villanova for four years (1980-84), during which time he helped recruit the team that eventually won the 1985 NCAA Championship.
Southern New Hampshire University freshman Matt Paradis, who plays out of Concord Country Club, was named the Northeast-10 Rookie of the Week for the period ending March 20.
Paradis earned the honor after finishing tied for second in the individual standings, and helping the Penmen claim the team title, at the Barton College Intercollegiate tournament in Wilson, N.C., March 14-15.
Paradis, who is from Hooksett and went to Manchester Central, shot a 146 (72-74) and wound up in a three-way playoff for first with teammate Jake Nutter and Mount Olive’s Brady Hollenbacker. Nutter eventually won the playoff and earned Northeast-10 Golfer of the Week honors. SNHU finished with a team total of 592, 12 strokes better than second-place Barton College.
Bow’s Josh LaCasse, a sophomore, also golfs for SNHU, which will be back in action April 4-5 for The Trojan at Walnut Creek Country Club in Goldsboro, N.C.
Construction continues for UNH’s new Wildcat Stadium, set to open on Sept. 10 for the football team’s home-opener against Holy Cross.
The next big step for the stadium is the installation of the bleacher seats, which is scheduled for the first week in April. That will happen to coincide with the start of spring practice, which begins in April 5 and ends with the annual Blue-White Spring Game on May 7.
The project is expected to be substantially completed by the end of July with a few finishing touches happening in August before the game against Holy Cross. The Wildcats open their season on Sept. 3 at San Diego State, an FBS opponent. The other home games for the 2016 season are scheduled for Oct. 1 (Homecoming against William & Mary), Oct. 15 (James Madison), Oct. 29 (Stony Brook) and Nov. 12 (Albany). For more updates and information on the stadium, go to unhstadium.com.
(Tim O’Sullivan can be reached at 369-3341 or at tosullivan@cmonitor.com or on Twitter @timosullivan20.)