Milford Post 23 baseball takes advantage of miscues to beat Merrimack Post 98 (video)

NASHUA – It’s hard to overcome mistakes playing in a tournament against the best baseball teams in the state.

When a team makes four in one inning, it’s close to impossible.

Merrimack Post 98 committed a quartet of errors in the bottom of the sixth inning, and Milford Post 23 took advantage.

Post 23 scored five times in the sixth, and another Post 98 error led to two Milford runs in the seventh, on the way to an 8-1 win in the American Legion senior baseball state tournament at Holman Stadium.

Milford advances to take on Rochester Post 7, which beat Lebanon Post 22 11-3 on Friday, at 7 p.m. in the winners’ bracket on Saturday. Merrimack plays an elimination game at 12 p.m. against Lebanon.

“Errors in the tournament are going to kill you every single time,” Milford coach Ryan Britton said. “They had four or five in those two innings, and we scored all of our runs off them.”

The implosion came a half inning after Merrimack (8-7) had tied the game 1-1 after missing out on a pair of opportunities against Milford (15-2) starter Joe Grassett earlier in the game.

“We played well except for those two innings,” Merrimack coach Chris Shanahan said. “When you have an inning when you blow up like that, you can’t beat the teams in the tournament. We shot ourselves in the foot. (Justin) Grassini pitched great and defensively, we didn’t help him out.”

Grassett got the win for Milford, as he allowed an unearned run on four hits and a walk over eight innings. After allowing a one-out single in the top of the first, Grassett retired 11 in a row and 13 of 15 before Merrimack got on the board in the sixth.

“Joe was phenomenal on the mound again,” Britton said. “That was good. Not many kids have seen him. We have a 1-A and 1-B pitching with Ian (Towle) and Joe. We can throw Joe (Friday) with a team that hasn’t seen him, maybe one or two kids. He’s tough to pick up the first time. I struggled against him the first time I saw him. He does a good job keeping the guys off-balance.”

Jake McMaster led the Milford offense, going 3 for 4 with a double and two runs scored, while Bryce Walker and Ryan Hill each drove in two runs. Thomas Bennett and Dan Allen also had an RBI each, with most of the damage coming in the sixth inning, when Post 23 batted around.

Milford could have struck for more in the first two innings, but in each frame, Post 23 had a runner thrown out on the bases.

“They were trying to make things happen by themselves,” Britton said. “When you have a team like this, that’s balanced throughout the lineup, they can make things happen. Just take it pitch by pitch and it will turn out better than trying to steal bases.”

Post 23 broke through in the third when Mason Gaudette singled with one out and scored on a double by Bennett. Merrimack tied it in the sixth on a sacrifice fly by Andrew Thibault, which scored Grant Coy, who had led off the inning with a single.

But Post 98 gave it back in the bottom of the inning.

“That makes it worse,” Shanahan said. “We were playing great and to chip away and get that run, and we had a couple of opportunities, and then give it right back (is frustrating).”

With one out, Bennett reached when center fielder Tyler Deneill dropped a fly ball, and back-to-back singles by McMaster and Allen helped put Milford up 3-1. Walker followed with a walk and Hill brought home two more runs with a single to make it 5-1. Hill later scored when CJ Bilodeau reached on an error to keep the inning going.

“Getting the lead and getting momentum was nice, and then we came out the next inning and poured on some more,” Grassett said. “The goal is to throw zeros every inning, but it does take a little bit of the stress off when you know you can miss with one or two pitches.”

Grassini took the loss for Merrimack, going six innings and allowing six runs – four earned – on seven hits and one walk while striking out two.