Championship DNA powered NK baseball to another title – The Independent

PROVIDENCE Surely the game-tying home run would be too difficult to come back from.

But it wasnt.

The closer who hadnt thrown a single pitch all year couldnt possibly escape this jam.

But he did.

The North Kingstown High School baseball team has made a habit of meeting every challenge the last two years. Pitching, defense, and timely hitting have been bolstered by an amazing ability to keep fighting. The last two examples were particularly remarkable and they allowed the Skippers to capture their second consecutive state championship with a sweep of Bishop Hendricken this past weekend.

Its team over talent, head coach Kevin Gormley said. Youve got to play the game. These guys, I just told them, theyre the toughest [players] Ive ever coached. Their mental toughness is second to nobody Ive ever coached. A couple of times, they could have folded. They just come back. They dont stop.

It has become a trademark. There was the steady grind required in 2021, when the Skippers were a middle-of-the-road team that caught fire in the postseason and won the state title, with some bumps along the way. They maintained their lofty standards this year, but their quest for a repeat could have ended before it began. They needed a late rally to win their playoff opener. They also fell behind in a semifinal series game. In the finals, they had to scratch and claw to hang on to a 1-0 series-opening win.

The hurdles that popped up in game two of the championship series were the most significant yet, but the Skippers simply upped the ante right along with the stakes. When Hendricken star Brandyn Durand tied the game with a lightning strike of a home run in the bottom of the seventh inning, the Skippers immediately responded with four runs. And when the Hawks loaded the bases with nobody out in the bottom of the eighth, T.J. Gormley went to the mound for the first time all season. The senior stopped the rally in its tracks to seal a 10-7 win.

Its unreal. Im higher than cloud nine right now, T.J. Gormley said. That was such a hard-fought game. That was the hardest game weve played in all year. Im so proud of us. We fought adversity all year. We played a lot of close games. Thats a great team over there. Im so proud of our guys, that we got it done in crunch time.

Before the drama, the Skippers were on the fast track. In game one, Evan Maloney pitched a gem and Braeden Perry closed it out. Perry picked up where he left off as he took the mound for game two, stretching the scoreless streak to 11 innings.

And the Skippers staked him to a lead. After leaving the bases loaded in the first inning, they took advantage of a chance in the second inning. No. 9 hitter Quincy Rome was hit by a pitch with two outs and moved to second on a wild pitch. T.J. Gormley sent him home with an RBI single. Andrew Ciarniello followed with an RBI double and Josh Lincourt kept the line moving with an RBI single. The Skippers led 3-0 and had chased Hendricken starter Ryan Thompson.

North added two more runs in the fifth. Ciarniello walked and Lincourt singled. Maloney reached on an error that allowed Ciarniello to score. A sacrifice fly by Rob Lamond plated Lincourt and made it 5-0.

Perry had worked out of some trouble in the fourth inning thanks to a pair of strikeouts with runners in scoring position. The Hawks broke through in the fifth. A single, two errors and a sacrifice fly pushed two runs across. Then Durand hit the first of his two home runs, a blast to left field that made it a one-run game.

Perry kept North in front with a scoreless sixth inning, working around a leadoff single and stranding the tying run at third. The Skippers picked up an insurance run in the seventh as Max Proulx lined an RBI double to score Maloney.

With Hendricken down to its last three outs, Perry headed back to the mound, looking to finish off a playoff run in which only he and Maloney had thrown a pitch for the Skippers. That was the way the Skippers would have drawn it up and the senior aces came close to delivering, but reality got messy.

Braeden Campbell led off the seventh with a single. Perry retired the next two batters but still had to get through Durand. The University of Kentucy commit and 2021 Gatorade Player of the Year lined a 1-1 pitch to deep right field. It seemed to still be going up when it crested the fence for a game-tying two-run homer.

The title shot was slipping away in jarring fashion.

That was pretty deflating. It has to be, Maloney said. But we know what were made of. We know were going to fight to the very end. We didnt want to come back tomorrow. We wanted the sweep.

The celebration had barely died down when North began delivering its rebuttal. Evan Beattie relieved Perry and struck out Jared Munoz to end the seventh inning and keep the game tied.

Then the Skippers went to work. Gormley reached on an error with one out in the eighth and Ciarniello stayed hot with an RBI triple to deep right field, which quickly broke the tie. After a walk to Lincourt, Maloney plated Ciarniello for the two-run lead. Lamond then reached on a fielders choice. With a first-and-third situation, the Skippers tried some trickery, with Lamond dancing off first base and getting himself into a rundown. Lincourt broke for home and beat the throw. When the ball got away, Lamond headed for third, and when he saw that nobody was covering home, he never stopped running.

Just like that, the Skippers had a 10-6 lead.

Back and forth, crazy game, Ciarniello said. Were a resilient team. We know we handle adversity better than anybody in the state. Even when they scored those runs, had those big innings, we knew we could come back from that. We knew we still had more left, and we showed it in those last few innings.

One more roadblock emerged in the eighth inning. Beattie stayed on the mound and was greeted by three straight hits, the last of which plated a run that made it 10-7. When Beattie walked Alex Clemmey to load the bases, Kevin Gormley made the call to bring in T.J.

He had been a successful closer in 2021 but a shoulder injury suffered during football season last fall led to surgery and kept him from pitching all spring. He and his father had talked about maybe pitching in an emergency.

And here it was.

I was the safety guy, the last resort, T.J. Gormley said.

The first pitch he threw came right back at him. He snagged the chopper and fired home for an out. Lincourt threw to first for a double play. It was one more perfect answer.

Right before I faced him, I said to Josh, Ground ball back to me, I got you, T.J. said. One hopper right there. A lot of pressure was lifted off.

After a walk loaded the bases again, Gormley got Jack LaRose to hit a fly ball to right-center field. Lamond camped under it and squeezed it for the final out. Durand was left in the on-deck circle.

The Skippers celebrated. They are the first public school to win two straight D-I baseball titles since Cranston West in 2006 and 2007.

We had all the confidence in the world, T.J. Gormley said. This was our goal from day one. We were going to be upset if we didnt repeat.

Perhaps it was always going to end like this not necessarily with another title, but with a championship team going down fighting.

Its been like that all year, Gormley said. Weve won a lot of close games this year. Weve never been tested like that. Its the players. We develop players. We dont inherit talent. We develop talent. And theres a difference when you do that, because they believe in one another. Theyve been playing with one another. Theyre working hard. And it shows: That guys got my back, because I see him putting in the effort. Thats what we do. We just work.

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Championship DNA powered NK baseball to another title - The Independent