Ashland American Legion Back In The Playoffs

Derek Johnson has seen his Ashland American Legion team riding a roller coaster since he acquired the team three years ago. Post 77 just barely missed out on tournament play, Johnson’s first campaign, but found things rough going during year two only to bounce back this year with their best season thus far.
“Last year we struggled to get kids; they were not as talented and our pitching lacked depth. We eventually finished at 4-12,” the coach said. “Coming into this year our goal was to get as many kids as we possibly could to try out. The players did a good job spreading the word, and we had almost 30 kids come out for the team.”
With their regular season behind them Ashland finished 12-6 and currently is in a tie with Waltham for first place in zone 5. Waltham has the ability to take full control of the top spot as they have a game in hand over Ashland. After opening the season with a 10-0 win over Hudson the Ashland squad improved to 3-1 before they found themselves continually winning more than they lost. Their largest winning streak of the season (which they did twice) was three, but they found themselves lucky enough never to lose consecutive contests.
With what the local nine lacked in pitching last season, they more than made up for it this summer with 10 different athletes taking to the mound at some time during the regular season. Shawn Babineau was the team’s ace with a 1-0 record, striking out 12 and posting an ERA of 0.00 through 12 innings of work. The Ashland lefty only got into four games on a limited basis and was on a pitch count due to playing baseball in college.
Following Babineau were Tim Onsi (1-0 with a 2.38 ERA in 14 innings) and Jake Obid (3-1 posting an ERA of 2.30 over 24 innings of work). Johnson considered the two hurlers relatively equal as the team’s 2A and 2B. Zach and JP Pessin rounded out the top five.
“The first year we had a solid four starters and then maybe 2 or 3 last year,” Johnson said. “Last year we were throwing kids out there just to eat up innings. It was nice to have the depth at that position again this year.”
At the plate Ashland was led by Ben Thomas who hit .341 and knocked in 16 runs. Other offensive threats were Jackson Hornhung (.306, 7 RBI, 11 runs scored and one homerun), Obid (.298, 20 runs scored, 10 RBI and was hit by pitches another 10 times), and Ronan Bates (.255, 12 RBI and second on the team behind Obid with 15 runs scored).
While Johnson knew a lot of this year’s athletes from either Legion or AAU baseball he was somewhat surprised at his first year catcher Sean Jewett. After having last year’s starting catcher not come out for the team because of an elbow injury the Coach didn’t know how things were going to go this summer.
“Without Zach coming out this year it really looked tough for us going into tryouts, but Sean totally surprised us with his play, although only 14 years old,” the coach said. “He was huge behind the dish for us, catching every single game, including double headers. Coming in as a JV catcher and having to play against varsity and college athletes he did a phenomenal job. ”
Standing in the batter’s box Jewett hit .275 with 10 RBI and 12 scored in his first legion season.
Another key component to the team’s success was what Johnson called the designated chirpers, Dylan O’Leary, Jack Larche, and Sameer Sharma. The trio not only kept the team focused, but also loose on the bench.
As Ashland awaits the rest of the zone to finish the regular season games to find out where the team finishes in the standing and who they will match up against in Zone 8 in the tournament, Johnson is letting his team rest.
“Being the only Zone 5 team done we can sit back and relax and wait to find out our seed,” he said. “I don’t feel the time off is going to hurt us. We did suffer over the fourth when we had a week off, but came right back with two big wins following that loss. This team can focus quickly, and being in a double elimination tournament, I feel confident that if we do lose we’ll bounce back.”