Baseball: John Stark falls in D-II championship to top-ranked Souhegan
Published: 06-15-2025 3:32 AM
Modified: 06-15-2025 9:54 AM |
MANCHESTER – In order to knock off top-ranked Souhegan, John Stark knew it was going to take a perfect performance. The Generals took an early lead and Player of the Year Chase Philibotte struck out nine Saber batters, but John Stark (17-3) committed a couple of errors early that allowed Souhegan to claw its way back into the game and weren’t quite as crisp in the field as usual as No. 1 Souhegan (20-1) defeated the No. 2 Generals, 4-3, to win the Division II baseball championship on Saturday at Northeast Delta Dental Stadium.
“They’re a type of team that you can’t make mistakes against. Unfortunately, this was one of our poorer defensive games that we’ve had in quite a while,” John Stark head coach Dennis Pelletier said. “I think the bright lights of being in a championship game affected both teams.”
Playing under the lights at the home stadium of the New Hampshire Fisher Cats in front of a large crowd and both teams’ aces starting on the mound, there was electricity in the air.
Souhegan starting pitcher, senior Brayden Hickman walked seniors Joey Dykstra (0-for-2, two walks, two runs) and Philibotte (1-for-3) to open the game and a single by Aidan Williams (2-for-4, two RBI) brought Dykstra home. Senior Ryder Brown (1-for-3) drove home junior Aiden Harris (1-for-4) on a fielder’s choice for an early 2-0 lead.
But the Sabers responded quickly. Senior Cam Brown ground into what would normally be a routine 6-4-3 double play. The first out at second base was clean, but the overthrow to first base allowed senior Matt Silk (1-for-2, double, walk, run, RBI) to score.
Trailing 2-1 in the bottom of the second, Souhegan had two on and two out when senior Drew Reagan (1-for-3, two RBI, run) smacked a ground ball to center for a two-run single, scoring Alex Trudel (1-for-3) and Jaiden Bosquet (0-for-1, two walks). An infield error allowed Reagan to continue to third and he came on a double by Silk in the next at bat, giving the Sabers a 4-2 lead.
“(Hickman) was a little wild to start off the game and we were taking advantage of that. But then we got a little complacent and didn’t keep the energy up,” Philibotte said. “Bad things happen when you don’t have energy.”
John Stark’s defense was clean the rest of the way and the Generals had at least one runner reach base for the next four innings.
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Williams singled home Dykstra in the bottom of the fifth to cut the Souhegan’s lead to 4-3, but couldn’t get that final key hit, despite getting runners in scoring position two more times before the game’s end.
Hickman nearly made it a complete-game effort, striking out seven, walking four and allowing three runs on five hits, but reached the maximum 120 pitches with two outs in the top of the seventh. Junior Ethan Gaudet forced Williams to fly out to left field for the final out to secure the championship for the Sabers.
Philibotte struck out nine, walked three and allowed four runs on five hits.
“You could see in our defense today, we left a couple double plays on the board, we had a couple big plays that we could’ve made that just weren’t made. Souhegan made them,” Pelletier said. They’re such a good team, you can’t afford to make (those mistakes). … Despite all of that, it was a one-run ball game and we had the tying run (in scoring position) a couple of times. It was there.”
While Souhegan finally completed the job it couldn’t complete last year (the Sabers fell in the 2024 final to Bow, 13-3), Pelletier had several things to point to.
First, the Generals have gone a combined 34-5 over the past two seasons and have continued to trend upward over the last four years. John Stark won the program’s first championship in 2021, and since the current seniors joined the program as freshmen in 2022, the Generals have reached the quarterfinals twice (2022 and 2023), the semifinals last season and reached the final for just the second time in program history.
“I couldn’t be more proud of (my team). We came into the season with no hopes at all, we weren’t on any ranked lists and we proved them all wrong,” Philibotte said. “Not the way we wanted to end, but we all gave it our all every pitch, every inning.”
This year’s senior class includes Philibotte, John Stark’s second consecutive D-II Player of the Year (Anthony Paolicelli won the award last season), Dykstra and Hayden Pond, who have been fixtures in multiple sports over the last four years, and Brown, Ryan Nagle, TJ Lorenz and Jayden Bishop.
“I love to see the effort (the seniors) put into this John Stark community,” Pelletier said. “Look how many are here from our community, that’s pretty damn special. It felt good to look and see all those people here. … I’ve had more talented teams here, but this team was such a tight unit that anytime there was something that needed to get done, we found a way of getting it done. We just fell short. A little tiny bit.”