The youth movement has been in progress throughout the Bow baseball team’s season. But it blossomed in Tuesday’s Division III semifinals.
In the bottom of the fifth inning, left fielder Jack Corriveau fired a strike to catcher Austin Beaudette to throw out a Hopkinton runner hoping to give the Hawks the lead. One half inning later, Connor Blandini tripled and scored on a single by Ben Guertin. The Falcons didn’t trail again.
A sophomore made the throw. A first-year varsity player made the tag. A sophomore got the hit. A freshman scored the run.
Up next are the Monadnock Huskies at Northeast Delta Dental Stadium in Manchester for today’s D-III final, the final obstacle for Bow and its core of upstarts. Some are young, many are inexperienced, and none of them care as the Falcons close out a season that has started to gain a special feel.
“They’re really intelligent baseball players, and on top of it, they’re good athletes,” Coach Ben Forbes said. “We’ve got some two- and three-sport athletes out there, and we’ve got some full-on baseball players. It’s a good mix, and they like winning. They like it. They’re going after it.”
Teams often bank on senior poise and veteran savvy to get them through the pressures and trials of the playoffs. The Falcons, however, are winning with players in key roles that are going through all of that for the first time. Bow started five sophomores and freshmen in the semifinals, and had three of them in the top three spots of the lineup.
Pitching’s a different story, where varsity stalwarts Jeff Bell and Brendan Winch split starts, but the two hurlers depend on offensive and defensive support from the youngsters – and they’re ready to provide it.
“It comes from just hard work at practices and Coach (Forbes) giving us the confidence ourselves,” said Blandini, the leadoff hitter as a freshman shortstop. “Giving us the green light in 3-1 counts, knowing that we’re going to get the job done.”
Bow didn’t appear headed for such lofty heights at the start of the season. The Falcons were dealt a major blow before the year began when star catcher Evan Vulgamore was lost, ultimately, for the season. Suddenly Forbes had to toss away a lineup that had seniors Vulgamore and Bell anchoring the middle and start writing one that, ready or not, had some of the team’s youngest players in its most important slots.
“I don’t think anybody really was banking on the fact that he was going to be able to bounce back,” Forbes said. “I think we had some young guys who were excited for the opportunity.”
Still, with no varsity experience behind the plate and underclassmen at three of the four infield spots and in left field, some Falcons players wondered if the mix could work following a disappointing 8-10 season.
“At the beginning of this season I was talking to Coach Forbes and I (said) ‘Very young team, it’s going to be difficult to do anything this year,’ ” Bell said. “And he was like ‘Nope. They’re a good group of guys.’ ”
Forbes was right. The kids could play. But they needed to learn how to win. After a season-opening loss to Bishop Brady, Bow notched impressive wins over Hopkinton and Belmont, then bounced back from another loss to Brady to win three straight and improve to 6-2 – often showing the same resilience that has become their trademark in these playoffs.
“They saw they could stick to it. ‘All right, let’s go put a crooked number up and get back in it,’ ” Forbes said. “They know they can respond, and they don’t get down.”
The jump from challenger to contender came on May 14, when Bow faced Campbell, the winner of two consecutive state crowns and 41 straight games. The Falcons snapped that streak with a 4-3 victory that stunned the D-III field and opened Bow’s eyes to its own potential.
“That was a big turning point for us,” Forbes said. “The kids were like ‘Look, we can do this. If we play our game, we can beat anybody.’ ”
That confidence has only grown in June as the Falcons have kept winning and winning with their bevy of underclassmen, all of whom are eager to play a starring role.
In the semis, Corriveau had the saving assist and then a two-run single. Sophomore Christian McDonald, the No. 9 hitter, came within feet of putting one over the Southern New Hampshire University fence with a late double. Ben Kimball, yet another sophomore, had a two-run single. Guertin has scored five runs and driven in two in the last two wins.
One of the more startling stories for the Falcons, however, has been Blandini, the team’s lone freshman. He’s brought a line-drive bat and aggressive baserunning to the leadoff spot, played sparkling defense at shortstop and done all of it in his first experience with a high school postseason.
“I was not too nervous,” Blandini said of approaching the playoffs. “I’ve been playing baseball my whole life. It’s just another game.”
That attitude doesn’t surprise anyone on the Falcons, least of all their coach.
“Blandini is a baseball player. That’s all he does. He eats it, he breathes it, he sleeps it,” Forbes said. “You put him out there, he’s got as much game experience as anybody else on the field because he plays all year round.”
The biggest jump this year, however, belongs to Beaudette. The junior catcher was on JV his first two years, and with Vulgamore coming back, it looked like any starting varsity spot was going to have to wait at least a year.
That was before Vulgamore’s injury thrust Beaudette into the spotlight, however, and he had to adapt to the varsity level while playing the game’s most demanding position – for a coach who admittedly, as a former catcher, is demanding of everyone who puts on the equipment.
It’s a repeating theme by now. Beaudette has flourished, settling in as the team’s No. 3 hitter while earning the trust of Winch and Bell – and the respect of his coach.
“He was embracing the coaching. He’s a sponge. Trying to get as much as he could each time we’d work out,” Forbes said. “I’m very proud of the work that he’s put in. … That’s a tough spot for kids to play for me.”
With so many contributions coming from so many places, it can be tough to find new words to describe them. And after the semifinal win over Hopkinton, when asked to describe yet another play made by Corriveau or Blandini or Kimball or Guertin, Forbes finally ran out.
“I don’t even know,” he said, laughing. “I’m kind of at a loss.”
Eventually, the words came to him.
“They just love the game,” he said. “They’re just a gritty bunch of grinders, man.”
(Drew Bonifant can be reached at 369-3340, abonifant@cmonitor.com or on Twitter at @dbonifant)