Baseball: Harry West hurls no-hitter, Hopkins dismantles Athol

HADLEY — The Hopkins baseball team turned in a near-flawless performance against Athol in its 12-0 win on Friday afternoon.

The Golden Hawks won their third straight contest and seventh overall of the season, in the five-inning, run-rule shortened affair, which featured a no-hitter from senior Harry West and a leadoff home run from Aiden Keeling-Lococo.

“A lot of times this year, we sort of play to the level of the team we’re playing to, [Friday] was the first time it really felt like, even if we felt like we were a step ahead of them, we didn’t play soft,” Hopkins head coach Dan Vreeland said. “We went for the kill, we went and tried to score as many runs as we could as fast as we could, support our guys and didn’t get lazy anywhere in there.”

Starting with West, the hurler would’ve achieved a perfect game on the mound for the Hawks if not for a hit batsman late in the outing. Still, West earned a sparkling stat-line of no hits, no walks, no runs and three strikeouts in five innings.

“Getting ahead early in counts with the sinker and the fastball,” West said on what worked for him against the Bears. “My catcher Matt [Vassallo] making good calls and the defense behind me putting them away.”

Friday’s dominant showing almost didn’t happen, according to Vreeland, as another arm was planned to go against Athol, but some elbow discomfort forced Vreeland to alter course and give the nod to No. 10.

“Harry actually threw some innings on Monday,” Vreeland said. “He threw in relief against Northampton, but it wasn’t enough that he couldn’t pitch [Friday]. He looked at me and he was like ‘I got it.’

“For him to have done that with basically no notice, no prep work…he was locked in the whole time,” Vreeland said.

West’s no-hitter was almost undone in the top of the fifth inning, but a tremendous backhand snag and throw from shortstop Chace Earle on a hard-hit ground ball kept his teammate’s milestone intact.

“Chace made a great play at the end to save the no-hitter, so that was awesome,” West said.

At the plate, the Hawks had several timely hits to bring home a bulk of their runs, which began almost immediately once Keeling-Lococo went yard in the bottom of the first.

Vreeland mentioned after the game that Friday’s long ball was Keeling-Lococo’s third of the week.

“He’s white-hot,” Vreeland said.

Carter Styspeck and Derek Gromacki each concluded with multiple RBIs for Hopkins, while Wyatt Cook and Vassallo drove in one run apiece.

Athol’s Eli Wein struggled with consistency on the bump, allowing 10 runs in 3 1/3 innings, with eight walks and three strikeouts to boot.

The Hawks have been contenders in Division 5 for the past few seasons–last reaching the state final in 2023–and the pieces seem to be falling in place for another deep postseason run this spring.

Hopkins’ only loss has come against Frontier (Div. 4) and are it’s atop the Suburban East standings at 7-1.

Despite the Bears (0-8) being one of the weaker squads the Hawks will see this season, no errors were committed by the hosts on Friday. Should Hopkins show up to the diamond and play like it did against Athol the rest of the way, it’ll be a dangerous club come tournament time.

“Earlier in the week we had a slow start against some teams, we had our first loss against Frontier a few games ago, we kind of needed this dominant victory,” West said. “I feel like we’re still not playing our best. We’re hitting the ball kind of spotty in our lineup, but once we’re all going, I don’t think we can be beat.”

The Hawks will get right back to work with a game on Saturday night against Ware. The non-league clash at St. Joseph’s Field will begin at 7 p.m.

“If we come with that vibe and that energy the whole time, the sky is the limit,” Vreeland said. “But we just have to remember that that has to be the standard, that has to be the status quo that we have to come with that kind of energy every single time.”