SOUTH HADLEY – No one on the South Hadley baseball team could secure a Gatorade jug in time.
Instead of dousing coach Matt Foley with one glorious orange splash Monday after the Tigers defeated Chicopee 10-0 in five innings, they sprayed him repeatedly with every bottle of water in the dugout. The shower came in celebration of Foley setting the program’s all-time wins record with his 244th victory.
It broke a tie with the legend Thomas Landers, who coached three sports at South Hadley from 1944-1972. He was inducted into both the state baseball and basketball halls of fame in the late ’70s. They named the field at South Hadley High School after him in 1989.
Foley has coached the Tigers for 26 seasons. They won Western Massachusetts championships in 2010 and 2012 and added a state crown in 2012. He was inducted into the Massachusetts Baseball Coaches Association Hall of Fame in 2020.
“Those win numbers don’t really mean much to me because it’s the kids that win them,” Foley said. “The kids knew, and I honestly wanted to get beyond it for the kids so they could just go out and play. Whenever you can have a milestone of a guy who coached here, the field’s named after him, it’s always a good thing to be able to get more wins than a guy who was a legend here.”
An assistant told the team that Foley tied the mark with their senior night victory over Amherst last week. The Tigers lost against Greenfield to close the week but kept the possibility in the back of their heads for Monday’s game.
Senior Tyler Evans led off the bottom of the first with a single then stole second and third base. He came home on a passed ball to score the Tigers’ first run.
“As a leadoff hitter I set the tone,” Evans said. “That gave me enough room as a pitcher to go throw some strikes, and we were good.”
He didn’t need any more room. Evans threw his second consecutive shutout, giving up just two hits and two walks in five innings. He clocked in at exactly 70 pitches, which would allow him to start again Friday at Chicopee Comp to close the regular season in a game that will decide South Hadley’s state tournament fate. Win, and the Tigers are in. Lose, and their season ends.
“It was really a perfect scenario for the boys,” Foley said.
South Hadley (9-10) didn’t stop scoring after its first batter, though. Nathan Carillon laced an RBI single in the first to put the Tigers up 2-0. Evans helped himself some more with an RBI single in the third, scoring Brady Mendoza, who led off the inning with a triple that would have been a home run in any ballpark with a fence.
“There’s definitely been a few balls that a lot of us have hit this year that if there was sort of a closer fence around, we would have had a few home run celebrations,” Mendoza said. “We’re still happy to have that.”
Mendoza reached first after a dropped third strike to open the fourth inning. The Tigers took advantage of that three times in the game. Catcher Joe Meon moved him over with a sacrifice bunt, then Chicopee intentionally walked Evans. Mendoza went to third on a fly out to right field and scored on a passed ball to make it 4-0.
Ben Foley struck out to lead off the fifth, but the ball skipped beyond the catcher to allow him to run to first. Then Carillon was hit by a pitch to put runners at first and second. Keegan Earle laid down a picturesque sacrifice bunt to move them to second and third. Liam Quinn followed with a two-run single to make it 6-0.
“Third time through the lineup we starting to see him pretty well, but capitalizing on their mistakes was the biggest thing,” Evans said. “They made a few errors, and we made them pay for it.”
Mendoza kept it rolling with an RBI single – 7-0 – before two walks put another runner in scoring position. After a pop out, Aidan Sullivan hit into what should have been a ground out, but the ball jumped out of the Chicopee first baseman’s glove, allowing another run to score.
The Pacers changed pitchers, but Ben Foley drew a four-pitch walk to make it 9-0, bringing up Carillon again. He wore his second pitch of the inning to bring the game-winning run around and secure the victory via the 10-run mercy rule.
“You see kids laying down bunts and doing unselfish things, it just gives us more energy,” Evans said.
The Tigers will need it to keep the season going. They face the Colts on the road at 4 p.m. Friday.
“We put ourselves in the position that we have to win every single game. I think we turned it on (Monday),” Evans said. “We’re going to keep going on the confidence. We need to bring the same energy.”
Kyle Grabowski can be reached at kgrabowski@gazettenet.com. Follow him on Twitter @kylegrbwsk.