High school tournaments todaySoftballDivision III first roundNo. 19 Newfound (5-11) at No. 14 Hopkinton (9-7), 4 p.m.
Head to head: The teams did not meet in the regular season.
Notes: It’s been a wildly up-and-down year for the Hawks, who won their first five, lost the next five and seem to have found their winning ways just in time for the playoffs. Hopkinton won four of its last six games to earn home field in the opening round and enter the tournament with a little momenutm on their side. The Hawks have scored 10.5 runs per game during those final six contests and their only losses in that stretch came against No. 1 White Mountains, a 3-0 deafeat, and No. 5 Campbell, a 9-2 loss. Newfound won two of its last five to make the playoffs, but both of those wins came against Inter-Lakes (5-11). Expect Hopkinton to move on and face No. 3 Prospect Mountain (14-2), another team the Hawks didn’t see in the regular season, in the next round.
BaseballDivision III first roundNo. 18 Hopkinton at No. 15 Kearsarge (12-3)
Head to head: The two teams did not in the regular season.
Notes: When Berlin traveled to Hopkinton during April vacation, Kyle Slevira gave up just one hit and two walks in seven innings of work. So Hopkinton Coach Dave Chase will have an interesting decision to make – start Slevira against a team he’s proven against, or save his ace for a potential second-round matchup against No. 2 Conant (14-2). Chase may feel he can win without Slevira on the mound because the Hawks have been hitting the ball so well lately. They won four of their last five by scoring 9.6 runs per contest during the five-game stretch. The only setback in that run was a 7-6 loss to two-time defending champion Campbell, a game that saw the Hawks belt out 13 hits against Campbell’s ace and led Chase to call it his team’s best hitting performance of the season.
No. 20 Gilford (7-9) at No. 13 Franklin (9-7), 4 p.m.
Head to head: The Golden Tornadoes beat Gilford, 5-1, on April 13 in the season opener.
Notes: Franklin comes into the tournament having won four of its last five games. Not only do the Tornadoes have momentum, they also know they can win in a variety of ways. During the last five games Franklin has won a pair of pitchers’ duels (3-1 vs. Newfound and 2-0 vs. Prospect Mountain), a shootout (13-10 at Mascoma) and something close to a blowout (10-4 at Laconia). Gilford comes in having lost three of its last four and the Eagles have gave up 9.3 runs per contest during that four-game stretch. If the Tornadoes take advatnage of that momentum and their home field, they will advnace and travel to…Laconia, the same place they won by six runs on May 24.
