MANCHESTER – Pitching and defense has been the lifeblood of this summer’s Concord Post 21 Senior Legion squad, but Friday’s legion tournament opener is one that Concord’s arms would rather forget.
Except for one.
Wesley Lamphere, a recent graduate of John Stark now attending Massachusetts Maritime Academy, needed just 18 pitches to shut out Merrimack Post 98 in the ninth and 10th innings. It gave the Post 21 hitters some breathing room as they loaded the bases in the 10th and David Nelson drove in Ryan Tessier from third for a walk-off 11-10 win.
“I know I can count on Wesley to come in and throw strikes,” Post 21 Coach Matt Skoby said. “I’m just glad we got them in the 10th inning because I didn’t want him to have to go back out there.”
Don’t expect Lamphere to wax poetic on the duties of a closer, even if he did play a major role in saving Post 21’s tournament hopes.
“My job is just to go up there and pound the zone,” Lamphere said. “We were going through a rough spell with errors and letting up some base hits. All I had to do was throw strikes and let the fielders make the plays.”
Lamphere doesn’t just make it sound simple. He made it look simple, too.
With the game tied at 10 runs apiece, Lamphere took the mound in the ninth and put the first batter down on strikes swinging. The next batter looked like trouble for Concord (14-3) as Merrimack’s Chad Seaver cut a hard swing and drilled the ball to left field shading toward center. But Connor Lorenz tracked it down and made an impressive diving catch. The third batter hit toward the same area, putting Lorenz’s quic k feet on display again as the Bow High grad tracked it down and made the play with his feet still under him.
That’s the defense Skoby is used to seeing, the kind that Post 21 couldn’t put together in the middle and late innings. Concord allowed Merrimack eight runs from the fifth frame through the eighth. What was an 8-3 lead became a 10-8 deficit.
Post 21 seemed on the verge of collapse in the eighth, allowing two runs on errors and mishandled throws. One came on an attempted pickoff from the plate that rolled through the second baseman and the backup into shallow center.
Skoby pulled the team together for a quick talk.
“I told them that that’s about as worse as we can play,” Skoby said. “But it’s over. We get a chance for a clean slate. … These kids get so upset with themselves so you got to keep them relaxed.”
Post 21 left those mistakes behind and pushed across a pair of runs in the bottom of the eighth to tie the game, 10-10. Connor Blandini scored from third as Nelson hit into a fielder’s choice for the second out of the frame. Zach Miles followed Blandini to the dugout shortly after as he reached the plate on a past ball.
A scoreless ninth inning forced a 10th, where Lamphere forced three Merrimack hitters to fly out to left, center and right. In the home half, Concord loaded the bases with no outs and Nelson coming to the plate.
Tessier, who led off the inning with a single to center, took off from third as Nelson hit a skipping ball over second base. Tessier crossed the plate with ease and turned to join his teammates in swarming Nelson between first and second base.
Ask Nelson about the play and he, like Lamphere, keeps it straight and easy.
“I was just looking for a pitch to hit,” said Nelson, a 2016 graduate of Hopkinton High. “I knew they were playing in so pretty much anything to hit the ball well and go through the middle. I was looking for anything down the middle that I could put a charge into.”
Post 21 returns to Gill Stadium on Saturday at 4 p.m. to face Nashua Post 124.
Skoby had not settled on a starting pitcher for Saturday’s game but said it will be either Brian Nylen (Merrimack Valley High) or Brendan Winch (Bow High).
The tournament continues through weekend and concludes Tuesday. All games are played at Gill Stadium in Manchester.
(Nick Stoico can be reached at 369-3339, nstoico@cmonitor.com or on Twitter @NickStoico.)