Every year, it’s a free-for-all. Every year in Division III baseball, there’s a logjam at the top of the standings, with a list of teams – local and not – vying for a spot near the top.
It makes for a competitive season – and this one shouldn’t be any different.
“It very well could be wide open,” Hopkinton Coach Dave Chase said. “You’ve got eight, 10, 12 teams that are going to be battling for (the top) eight spots, for sure.”
That was certainly the case last year. Campbell, the division champion, went undefeated but didn’t have the top seed wrapped up until the final week. Somersworth went a sparkling 14-2, which was only good for the fifth seed thanks to a pack of four teams, including Chase’s Hawks, with matching records.
Belmont went 10-6 and didn’t get a playoff home game. In a division in which a whopping 12 teams get first-round byes, Gilford and Winnisquam each had winning records – and got no such perk.
“I tell the kids, only a 16-game schedule, you’ve got to go 12-4. You can’t go 9-7,” said Brady Coach Skip Foy, whose Giants had that record and drew Somersworth for their first matchup, a 3-0 defeat. “You go 9-7 in D-I, you’re probably hosting a game. With that many teams, it’s tough.”
It won’t be much looser at the top this year. Campbell, the two-time defending champion, and Somersworth lost players, but you’d have to go back to 2008 to find a final without one of those teams. Conant, Gilford and Monadnock are strong, and Mascenic, according to Chase, could be a semifinalist come June.
The list isn’t complete without Capital Area teams that will be challenging for the title. The Hawks, who fell in the semifinals to the eventual champion Cougars, were the best of those teams last year and are in position to be again. Often a haven for heavy hitters, Hopkinton is led this year by its pitching, which is helmed by senior lefty Kyle Slevira and which features Ben McManus, Dave Nelson, Josh Angell, Alex Lajeunesse and Kenny Andrew among hurlers Chase is comfortable sending to the mound to start a game.
“Our strength definitely looks like it’ll be our pitching,” he said. “Scoring runs will be the question. If we can score runs with the pitching we have, I think we’ll be pretty good.”
Bishop Brady will be looking to make the jump into that upper tier. The Green Giants bring back their ace and best all-around player in Tom Blandini, and returning third-team All-State players J.P. Nemcovich and Martin Hecka give Brady a fearsome top to the lineup.
The key, Foy said, is getting the rest of the team to follow suit.
“Based on that, we should be in the mix,” he said. “But we need some guys to step up, too. That’s the thing about baseball, it takes nine, not three.”
Belmont graduated its top pitcher in Joe Levesque, but the Red Raiders, led by second-team All-State pick Caleb Drouin, return stocked otherwise and looking to challenge for a high spot in the standings. Winnisquam, which endured an up-and-down 2015, brings back one of the division’s top pitchers in Tim Harmon. And Bow will have to find a way to navigate around the loss of defending Player of the Year Evan Vulgamore, the Quinnipiac-bound catcher who underwent Tommy John surgery in December.
Vulgamore won’t be able to show off his abilities behind the plate, but the senior is still hoping to bring his bat back to the lineup as a designated hitter in time for the homestretch.
“I feel like I can hit 100 percent right now, but we’re just waiting it out,” he said. “Mid-May, I’m hoping to be back in the lineup.”
Pinkerton and Bedford remained top-flight teams last year, but it was Spaulding that took home the championship, its first title in over 30 years.
Missing among the favorites, or even tournament teams, last year was Concord, which struggled through the pains of a rebuilding season. The Crimson Tide lacked consistent, reliable pitching, and whether or not it was able to grow arms during the season and ensuing offseason will determine whether it returns to status as a Division I threat.
“We’ve got some established arms and some new arms,” Tide Coach Scott Owen said. “We’re hoping pitching will be one of our strengths.”
Concord will also look for a lineup in flux much of last year to take a more stable form this time. Ethan Dupre and Matt LaTourette are among the returning players that made strides at the plate for the Tide last season.
“We have a lot of returning players and a lot of new players who are working hard,” Owen said.
Coe-Brown cracked the semifinals, falling to eventual champion Windham, and the Bears return key pieces as they try to make their way back. Brody Ashley, a junior and second-team All-State pick, is the team’s top pitcher, and third-team All-State choice Noah Dubois excelled playing the middle infield positions for the team last year.
John Stark fell below .500 last year, but made the playoffs and is poised for a better season this time around. Eight starters are back, led by two-time team batting champion Callahan Loos, one of the top players in the division, and Egan Nickerson, who takes over as the Generals’ top pitcher.
Merrimack Valley, which will look for Brian Nylen, Joe Dougherty and Robbie Rattee to lead an inexperienced pitching staff, is seeking a return to the postseason, while Pembroke will look to rebound from a 5-11 season that was affected greatly by graduation. They’ll have a ways to go to compete with division titans Portsmouth and Goffstown, who appear poised to be favorites again.
There’s no question who the favorite here is. Portsmouth Christian rolled to the championship behind Wes Tobin’s 19 strikeouts in the title game, and with the dominant righty back for his senior year, it’ll be a tall task for anyone – even perennial powers Sunapee, Newmarket and Colebrook – to unseat the Eagles.
A champion three summers ago, Pittsfield fell back with an 8-10 record last season. Coach Rob Stockman’s Panthers return six starters as they try to return to the division’s elite, but a smaller roster makes Pittsfield’s hill a tough one to climb.
(Drew Bonifant can be reached at 369-3340, or abonifant@cmonitor.com, or on Twitter @dbonifant.)