Senior night is always special. It doesn’t matter if a team has a winning record or a losing one, is heading to the post-season tournament or not. Senior night is about family and friends. Senior night is about remembering all the good times and the practice and the commitment and the training and the devotion to team. Parents and grandparents and siblings share in the joy and recognition. And when the night is done, it’s hard to believe that one’s high school career is almost at an end.
Well, for Jack Brisson, Patrick Johnson-Ciano, Lucas Pizzuto, Jack Brennan, Domenic Moynihan, Daniel Heep, Emilio Berndt, Adam Wainwright, Joseph Parmley and G’Nai Concannon-Garvin, baseball senior night has officially come and gone, and while Watertown came up just short against first-place Wakefield 3-2, it was a memorable night.
The starting lineup included seniors at first (Pizzuto), shortstop (Berndt), third (Moynihan), center (Brennan) and DH (Wainwright). On the opposite end of the spectrum, Watertown’s starting pitcher was the impressive freshman, Julian Boas. Boas ended up pitching four and third, giving up three runs on six hits, but he kept his team in the game. In relief, the equally impressive left hander Michael Caterino, also a freshman, pitched shutout ball for two-and-two-thirds innings.
Wakefield’s starting pitcher threw a complete game and struck out 10. He also went two-for-four at the plate with an RBI single in the first. Watertown couldn’t do much at the plate against him for five innings. They got one runner to second and another to third, but couldn’t drive either runner home. And then came the bottom of the sixth inning. And hope. And a reminder that playing a team sport is a blast, and that all the hard work can payoff.
Senior Jack Brennan led off the inning with an opposite field single to left. One pitch later, senior Lucas Pizzuto lined an opposite field single to right. After senior Emilio Berndt worked the count full but couldn’t catch up with a fastball on the outer part of the plate for the first out, senior Jayden Pineda followed the trend set by Brennan and Pizzuto and sent an opposite field single to left, loading the bases.
Senior Dominic Moynihan came to the plate and hit a ground ball right back to the pitcher, who fielded it pretty cleanly, but, instead of throwing home to get at least one out and keep Watertown off the scoreboard, he pirouetted and threw towards second. The problem? He threw the ball to the second baseman, who wasn’t at the bag. Runner safe at second! Every Raider advanced a base, and senior Brennan scored the first Watertown run.
Kingston Omalade then hit a sacrifice fly to right for the second out, scoring Pizzuto who tagged and slid into home ahead of the throw. The Wakefield right hander’s eighth strikeout of the night ended the rally, but it was suddenly 3-2 heading to the seventh. Caterino’s line in the seventh- strikeout, a bomb of a triple by Wakefield’s pitcher, the three hitter, strike out, strike out. And onto the bottom of the seventh and visions of completing the comeback.
Coach Manoukian sent up two pinch hitters to start the inning, and they became strike out victims nine and 10 on the night. Jack Brennan came up to the plate, Watertown’s final hope on Senior Night, and down to his last strike lined a clutch single to left. Lucas Pizzuto then went first-pitch swinging and hit a ball to fairly deep right that also had some tail to it. But the ball had enough air under it — too much if you were a Raider fan — for the right fielder to track it down and make a nice running catch in fair ground for the final out of the game. Final score, Wakefield 3, Watertown 2.
Watertown goes to 5-11 and according to Coach Manoukian, most likely won’t have rate high enough, even if they win two or all three of their remaining games, to qualify for the tournament. But he was very proud of his team, who lost to Wakefield earlier in the season 11-2. Wakefield goes to 10-5, and are likely to finish in first place in the Middlesex League standings.
Next up for the Raiders — at Fitchburg Saturday May 17, at Melrose Tuesday May 20 and at Maimonides Sunday May 25. Once again, congratulations to all the seniors for their contribution to Watertown baseball and Raiders athletics. Even in defeat, Senior night was a special evening!