Entering the season, Cambridge Rindge and Latin boys’ baseball coach Robert Merrill knew the team had the pieces necessary to have a successful season. With a lineup and pitching staff composed largely of seniors and talented players dedicated to working hard to improve, he had every reason to believe the team would perform well.
“I knew we were going to be good, but if you told me that at the beginning of the year, we were going to have a season like that, I never would have thought in a million years it would happen,” he said after the team won its tenth consecutive game with a 13-1 defeat of Somerville on Friday, ending the regular season 17-2.
The victory capped a week in which CRLS captured the Dual County League championship for the first time since joining the league in 2015. They are ranked 14th in Eastern Massachusetts by the Boston Globe and ninth in the MIAA Division I power rankings.
In the defeat of Somerville, senior pitcher Jasen Thomas pitched five innings of one-hit ball, allowing an unearned run, striking out seven, and walking one. The Falcons put the game away early, scoring eight runs in the bottom of the first and sending twelve batters to the plate. The game was called after five innings on account of the mercy rule.
A dominating season
The Falcons will learn Wednesday who they will face in their first game of the MIAA baseball tournament. They will host their opponent at St. Peter’s Field on either Sunday or Monday.
From the first game of the season, the Falcons largely dominated their competition, and on the season, they scored 142 runs and allowed only 58. Fairly early on, though, they faced a challenge on the road against a tough Wellesley opponent in their seventh game of the season. Cambridge found itself down 4-2 after five innings, but scored one in the sixth inning and two in the seventh with two outs to take the lead. Although Wellesley won on a walk-off single in the bottom of the seventh, the team’s doggedness in that game was a sign.
“I was walking out to right field after the game to talk to the team,” said Merrill. “I look to my assistant Rich (Beyer) and I’m like, ‘We’re gonna be just fine.’”
At various times throughout the season, Cambridge battled back after finding itself down. “Anytime we’re down by a few runs, we’re super confident in the dugout,” said senior pitcher and center fielder Oliver Henke. “No one’s down, and we’re just ready to go. And I feel like everyone’s just super confident.”
Building on longstanding bonds
Many of the players on the team have been playing together since they were children in Little League. Knowing each other for so long has helped foster camaraderie among teammates.
“There’s a positive supportive environment and a lot of chemistry on the team,” said senior first baseman Stefan Alexandrov. “I think that’s because we’ve been playing with each other our entire lives. You can see pictures of me with Oliver (Henke), Tate (Schoenau), and a bunch of other people when we were like ten years old.”
The team’s chemistry has generated an environment of selflessness among the players.
“We have seniors who haven’t had a lot of innings but they’re the first guys in the dugout rooting for the guys that are playing their positions, and kind of preventing them from getting innings,” said Merrill. “And they’re the guys who are leaders in the dugout, and are lifting up other guys and making sure guys are staying focused. So we really had some dugout generals, I call them, that really set the tone for the team in the dugout.”
After such a dominating season and riding a ten-game winning streak, the team is quite confident they can go far in the state tournament.
“There’s really good vibes between everyone right now, and I feel like there’s not a team we can’t beat in the state,” said Thomas.
A stronger
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