Despite the fact that its 2018 season hasn’t had anywhere near as many “ups” as it would have liked, the American Legion Post 27 Senior baseball squad has stayed right in there swinging with spirit.
And on the night of Thursday, July 12 at Londonderry High, the locals were able to capitalize on a slew of fielding miscues made by a Derry Post 9 Legion crew which is considered a legitimate state championship team in a 3-1 decision which the Derry squad would much rather forget.
The visiting side rolled into that Thursday night battle with a big head of steam having snagged both ends of a double-header against a talented Merrimack team in Merrimack the day before. And those two successes made Derry coach Mike Lynch’s crew an extremely strong 9-3 in tough Senior District B.
For its part, the Londonderry Post 27 side was in the midst of a humbling losing skid and looking up at everybody else from the basement of the District B standings.
But the old adage “anything can happen on any given day” came into play in the Derry/Londonderry rematch of a June 27 game at LHS in which Saint Joseph’s College of Maine-bound Derry pitcher George Welch twirled an impressive no-hit effort at the light-hitting Londonderry crew.
The Post 27 bunch did just enough hitting and got some truly stellar pitching work of its own from Travis Peabody in its 3-1 victory, in which the hosts scored twice in the third inning and once more in the fourth and knocked a total of six hits.
“Derry looked pretty flat and I think they were looking past us,” said Londonderry Legion baseball director Jim Blake.
Blake also made the point that pitcher Peabody’s mound effort was the centerpiece of that night’s Londonderry success. The hurler held a powerful Derry offense to a paltry four hits while walking just two batters and striking out a pair.
“It really was a great performance,” added Blake.
With its season record sitting at 3-10 and a playoff berth no longer in the picture, the Londonderry squad stepped into this the final week of the 2018 regular season looking at campaign-ending games against Nashua at LHS and then Exeter at Phillips-Exeter Academy after Londonderry Times press time.