By Chris Paul
The Londonderry High School Baseball squad capped off their near perfect 2023 season with two dramatic wins in their final two games of the playoffs to clinch their third Division I title.
The 4-3, walk-off, extra innings win against Pinkerton Academy on Saturday night, June 10, at Delta Dental Stadium gave the Lancers their seventh state title.
The victory also served as a bit of revenge between the two rivals, after Londonderry lost to the Astros 2-0 in the championship game one year earlier.
In the team’s final game on Saturday night, the Lancers got off to an early 1-0 lead in the bottom of the first when Jayden Hamilton hit a leadoff single to right and was later batted in with a ground ball to second by Johan Pena.
The lead stood at 1-0 until Pinkerton tied things up in the fourth on a double and a single to score one for a 1-1 score.
Senior starter, Connor Fennell, kept the PA squad from scoring for the remainder of the regular innings, but in the eighth, the Astros scored twice, to take a 3-1 lead in the top of the eighth. Pinkerton got to Fennell with a leadoff single followed by an one-out double over the head of left-fielder Colin Parent to score one, then a single to left drove in PA third run of the game.
Following that run, senior lefty, Mike Crowley, was summoned to the mound and helped stop the scoring.
In the bottom of the ninth, the Londonderry squad really came through at the plate.
Brett McKinnon walked to lead off the inning, Hamilton then singles to right and put runners on second and third. A walk to Owen Carey loaded the bases for a single by Pena to drive in one of the three runs needed for the win. Hamilton was thrown out in a close play at the plate for the first out of the inning.
Another walk, this time to Kevin Rourke, loaded the bases again and Carey was then driven in on a single by Liam Stot to tie the game at 3-3.
The winning run was batted in by sophomore Jet Jones, after a PA pitching change. Jones hit a line drive single to centerfield to begin the championship celebration.
The team had eight hits in the game and gave up nine. Crowley was given the win as the reliever coming in to get two outs.
Three nights earlier, in the semi-finals at Holman Stadium, in Nashua, the Lancers overcame a 4-2 deficit in the fifth inning to the Goffstown Grizzlies for an 8-4 win to advance to the finals.
Crowley and Rourke combined efforts on the mound, with Rourke registering the victory in relief.
The Lancers started the game having to dig out of a 2-0 deficit after GHS got a two-out, two-run homerun in the first.
The Lancer came back with two-runs of their own in the third inning, after two errors by Goffstown a single by Pena and a sac fly by Rourke tied the game at two.
The Grizzlies regained the lead with one run in the fourth and another in the top of the fifth.
In the bottom of the fifth, the Lancers bounded back, scoring four, to take a 6-4 lead with doubles by Carey and Jones and singles by Stot, Pena, and McKinnon.
Stot made it 8-4 in the sixth inning with a left field single to drive in Drew Heenan and Hamilton.
The Lancers had 11 hits in the semifinal win with just two strikeouts.
Carey, Jones, and Pena each had two hits in the game.
Londonderry High School’s championship titles go back all the way to 1982, when they took back-to-back championships in Class I. In 2004 and 2010 LHS had Class L titles and in Division I, the Lancers held the hardware in 2014, 2019 and now in 2023.