Given his druthers, Londonderry High baseball coach Brent Demas would doubtless love to have a re-do on his team’s first three games of the span covering May 9-14.
Demas’ Lancers began that period with a 7-4 record in tough Division I. But consecutive defeats at the hands of Bedford, Nashua South, and Salem left the LHS crew right at the .500 mark at 7-7. However, they managed to rise back above .500 while also ending their losing skid by defeating the Alvirne High Broncos in extra innings in Hudson last Saturday morning.
Following the Monday loss to Bedford, the Lancers fell to Nashua South by a 4-3 tally in the Gate City on Wednesday, May 11.
The host Purple Panthers snagged a 2-0 lead in the bottom of the second, and pushed their advantage up to 3-0 with a run in the latter half of the fourth. But Londonderry responded with a single score in the top of the fifth and two more in the top of the sixth to knot the score at 3-3.
However, the Nashuans managed the walk-off win with one run in the latter half of the seventh frame.
The Lancers smacked out eight hits, with Cam Fennell whacking two of them.
And the locals were dealt a 5-3 loss by the Salem High Blue Devils on the road on Thursday, May 12, with the hosts racing out to a 5-0 lead by the end of the third frame and Londonderry making a valiant comeback attempt that wound up consisting of three runs in the top of the fifth.
The Lancer crew was held to six hits this time around, with Fennell smacking two of them again. Brody Dupuis drove in two of the three LHS runs.
The Lancers pulled themselves out of their funk in dramatic fashion on Saturday when they busted a scoreless tie in the top of the ninth inning and bested the host Alvirne Broncos by a 3-0 tally.
Fennell thumped a two-run single and Jonny Meskell drove in the other run on what proved to be a three-hit day for him. Xander LaPlante, Jimmy Zimolka, and Ricky Perry each contributed two hits to the Lancer cause, and Nick Musto earned the pitching win with two strong innings of relief. The locals had received seven innings of four-hit ball from skilled veteran southpaw Noah Tavano earlier.
Londonderry hoped to build upon that success this past Monday when it played host to Manchester Central.
And the locals succeeded in winning a second straight game by belting Central by a 9-3 tally.
Londonderry led 3-0 at the end of four innings, but Central got two runs back in the top half of the fifth frame to make it a one-run contest.
The Lancers notched two runs in the latter half of the fifth inning and then four more big markers in the bottom of the sixth in tallying the win.
The locals smacked out a lucky 13 hits, with Nate Sullivan collecting three, Zimolka and Meskell each slapping two and driving in two runs apiece, and Perry and Fennell each tallying two hits as well.
LHS continued play this week with road games at Dover and Keene.
Cam Fennell has had an extremely hot bat for the LHS baseball squad recently. Photo by Chris Paul