Defending Pedroli Daily News Classic champion Hopkinton owns 15-game win streak
Last year will be hard to top.
Eighty runs. Two walk-offs. A “tenuous” 16-6 lead.
The Rich Pedroli Daily News Classic was indeed that. Classic. The 16th edition this weekend features a Friday/Saturday schedule for a change after beginning on a Thursday most years. Another bonus? Little chance of rain and afternoon highs in the low 80s.
Monday’s barbecue will see a return to showers and cooler weather, but that first hot dog will taste a little sweeter for the Pedroli champion.
“As a coach, playing in a tournament atmosphere like the Pedroli gives you a pretty good gauge of how hungry your team is,” said Lincoln-Sudbury coach Matt Wentworth in an email, “because winning the Pedroli is no small feat (we haven't done it since 2016) and going all in says a lot about a team's makeup.”
The tournament is played in honor of Rich Pedroli, a Daily News Editor and 1980 Milford High graduate who died in 2006 at age 44. His sister, Dori, usually throws out the first pitch before the championship game. Rich covered local sports for the Milford Daily News from 1978-81, before joining The Woonsocket (R.I.) Call while attending Northeastern University.
L-S (14-6, ranked No. 11 in Division 1’s MIAA power rankings) opens Friday’s play (4 p.m.) against one of the hottest teams in the state, Hopkinton. The Hillers (16-3, No. 3 in Division 2) have won 15 games in a row and haven’t lost since April 12.
Hopkinton won last year’s Pedroli, but it wasn’t easy. The green and orange trailed 4-0 and 7-4 to Franklin before Dylan Ruff’s walk-off single in the eighth inning provided a 10-9 victory. The Hillers led L-S in the championship game, 16-6, before hanging on for a wild 21-19 win behind Charlie Petruney’s MVP performance (2-for-4, 4 runs, 4 RBIs).
Natick won the consolation game, 5-4, over Franklin in walk-off fashion thanks to Hank Beaudoin, whose single scored Will Fosberg. The four teams combined for 80 runs for the tournament.
Lincoln-Sudbury, which had a 12-game winning streak earlier this season, is coming off a 4-2 loss to BC High. The team’s top hitter is Northeastern-bound catcher Cooper Tarantino, who is batting .418, which is fifth in the Dual County League. Junior Connor Hammond is right behind him at .414.
Senior shortstop Jake Haarde, a Penn State pledge, is hitting .385 and leads the DCL with 15 stolen bases.
Peter Abair leads the league in earned run average at 0.38 and is 2-1 on the season. Jenson Martin is 4-0 while Matt Mahoney has 44 strikeouts in just 26 innings.
Hopkinton's leading hitter is named Pedroli, but is no relation to the tournament's namesake. Junior center fielder Nick Pedroli, who hit a grand slam in that wild first-round win over Franklin last year, is hitting .387 and has 10 stolen bases. Ruff, also a junior, is hitting .367 with 13 RBIs.
Petruney, a senior captain, is hitting .289 with 13 steals and 11 RBIs. Sean McCann, also a senior captain, is batting .344.
Senior captain Derek Hatherley is 5-0 with 49 strikeouts in 37.1 innings pitched. Senior Matt Gaughan is 5-1. Defensively, senior captain/catcher Pete Mahon, freshman third baseman Lucas Hodne and sophomore shortstop Ryan Lang have played their positions well.
Natick in unfamiliar position: out of playoff hunt
Natick plays Franklin (12-7) at 7 p.m. The Redhawks used an all-senior lineup and fell to Wellesley, 4-2, on Wednesday and enters the tournament with just three wins after graduating 11 seniors, including Bay State Conference All-Star catcher Will Fosberg.
Natick has never won the Pedroli and has extra incentive this year because qualifying for the postseason is very unlikely.
"To finish with the Pedroli against three teams that are having great seasons and in playoff contention, it gives us an opportunity to compete and do something a little bit different," Natick coach Jason Hoye said.
The Redhawks again have 11 seniors and are captained by seniors Jack Byrne (center field), Robert Farr (shortstop) and James Bianchi (catcher). Byrne is hitting at a .436 clip with 13 runs batted in. Sophomore Luke Dougherty is hitting .361 with nine stolen bases.
Teddy Ferrucci has a 2.30 ERA in 40.1 innings.
Dougherty is one of eight underclassmen who have seen plenty of time on the field this season.
Natick earned just one victory in April, but later downed Braintree, which is now 17-3, and played well against Wellesley (13-5) earlier this week.
"We knew we were going to take some lumps this year but we didn't think it was going to be as difficult as it was," Hoye said. "However, the seniors and the captains have done a nice job of keeping it a positive environment and celebrating the little things within the game. Early in the season, it felt like they were putting so much darned pressure on themselves to win at all costs and it worked against us. But they've remained positive; they're still having fun."
Franklin had its game Thursday with Bridgewater-Raynham postponed until Monday morning and has allowed four runs or fewer in each of its last seven games.
The team's leading hitter is Rex Cinelli, who is batting .390. Dom Caccavelli is at .362. Franklin won the Pedroli title in 2022 and played in last year’s MIAA state championship game, falling to Taunton at Polar Park. The Franklin Post 75 American Legion team won the state title later in the summer in Natick.
Caccavelli is 4-0 on the mound with 28 strikeouts in 33.1 innings with an ERA of 0.63. Sean Kryzak is 4-1.
The MIAA's tournament brackets will be announced on Wednesday, with the preliminary round starting two days later. State finalists will play for titles on June 14-15 at Polar Park. Wentworth says the Pedroli Classic is a good lead-in to the postseason.
“Even though the Pedroli can't completely replicate the State Tournament atmosphere," he said, "it is a legitimate approximation and we will always embrace any advantage we can gain while preparing for the postseason."
Hoye added that the final weekend of May is one of the best times of the season.
"For us and Natick, this is one of the most prideful moments of the year to host this event," he said. "Think of the four towns and the baseball history that exists. I think it's the best thing going at this time of year."
Tim Dumas is a multimedia journalist for the Daily News. He can be reached at tdumas@wickedlocal.com. Follow him on Twitter @TimDumas.
This article originally appeared on MetroWest Daily News: 16th Rich Pedroli Daily News Classic features red-hot Hopkinton
