Hopkinton holds off Lincoln-Sudbury in wild Pedroli Memorial Daily News Classic final

NATICK – Overheard at Natick’s John Carroll Baseball Complex at Mahan Field on Saturday afternoon, a day those in attendance will remember for a long, long time.

• One gent to another: “What a barnburner.” Gent 2: “I think this one burned multiple barns.”

• “The batter’s box doesn’t even exist anymore.”

• “And number 21 for Hopkinton, Dylan Ruff, scores the Hillers’ 21^st run of the game.”

• “The system that charts pitches ran out of space.”

• “If a team’s up 10 after five innings, it’s a mercy rule, right?”

• “You might have to turn on the lights.”

And it went on and on. No lead or late-afternoon plan of anyone in attendance was safe in the 15^th Richard J. Pedroli Jr. Memorial Daily News Classic final between Hopkinton and Lincoln-Sudbury, which not only went 40/40 (40 runs on 40 hits) but also featured as many errors (9) as pitchers (9).

After all the dust had settled and all batter’s box chalk was no more, one team stood tallest at the end on one long day as the Hillers held on for a 21-19 win that, yes, took place on a diamond and not the nearby gridiron.

“I thought the Franklin game was the craziest game I’ve ever been a part of. No question, today surpassed that,” said first-year Hopkinton coach Matt Anderson, referring to Thursday night’s 10-9 thriller vs. the Panthers at Mahan Field.

“I thought it was like a football score, like 21-19 is crazy,” said Hopkinton junior center fielder and tournament MVP Charlie Petruney while looking back at the scoreboard. Petruney went 2-for-4 with a walk, four runs and four RBIs. “But we fought hard, we scored a lot of runs early. They came back a little bit, we put up five or six in the last inning, so it’s crucial to win.”

With a nod to Bill Hader’s “Saturday Night Live” character from “Weekend Update,” Stefon, this game had everything: a losing team smacking 23 hits to the winning team’s 17; a winning team seeing its 10-run lead cut to one; a long foul ball by L-S catcher Cooper Tarantino that came several feet from being a three-run home run that would have given L-S its first lead of the day an inning after almost incurring a mercy-rule defeat; nine final-inning runs, with Hopkinton collecting five at the top of the seventh and L-S plating four in the bottom half to give new meaning to the phrase “keeping it interesting.”

As a Daily News employee came out of the press box with trophies and all-tournament plaques in hand as the presumed winners led by 10 runs, word perhaps got to the Warriors dugout as they rattled off seven runs in the bottom of the fifth inning to cut the deficit to 16-13.

After Hopkinton didn’t score in the top of the sixth inning, L-S (12-10) continued its climb back in the bottom of the frame. With the score 16-14 and two runners on, Tarantino (3-for-6, R) launched a ball deep down the left-field line and into the trees. But foul. Ten feet to the right, and the Warriors would have had an improbable 17-16 lead just an inning after trailing 16-6.

L-S coach Matt Wentworth wasn’t playing the “what if?” game afterward, but he was willing to entertain this as a building block heading into the postseason.

“The first thing I said to them when we went out to the outfield (after the game) was I couldn’t have been prouder even if we had won the game,” Wentworth said. “The fact of the matter was, I know it was the sixth inning, but that ball stays fair another 10 feet inside the pole, and we take a lead, the seventh inning probably looks different. It’s going to be a completely different feeling going out to the field being down one versus being up one, so you can say ‘hey, they scored four in the top of the seventh anyway, so maybe it doesn’t matter,’ but I think it does make a difference.

“Again, when you’re playing a team as good as Hopkinton, you know that to battle the way that you do, and to be able to have comeback after comeback, it’s something that you can carry over because that’s going to play against any team in the tournament.”

L-S left fielder/pitcher Frankie DeTraglia earned All-Tournament honors, finishing the day 2-for-6 with two RBIs and pitching one inning while striking out two.

For Hopkinton, it was the first Pedroli Daily News crown since 2018, as Franklin won in 2019 and 2022 (there was no tournament in 2020 or 2021 due to COVID-19). In addition to Petruney’s MVP nod, right fielder Connor Hallenbeck also earned All-Tournament honors, finishing his day 2-for-4 with a walk, an RBI and two runs.

Anderson, who succeeded MBCA Hall of Famer Steve Simoes in the dugout, tried to wrap his head around what he’d just seen while looking forward to the MIAA Division 2 tournament for his 14-6 outfit.

“I think it’s unbelievable the way (L-S) battled back,” he said. “You go down by 10, usually people call it a day. They stayed energized, they came back. But our guys just were relentless. Constant pressure offensively, every single inning, we forced them to make plays all day long. It didn’t matter whether they came back or not, we stayed positive and we got the momentum back on our side and we found a way to close it out.”

The Hillers indeed did close it out, with a pop out induced by Hopkinton pitcher Drew Riesenberger the final out in a game like nobody in attendance had seen. It had everything.

Host Natick walks off Franklin in consolation game

In a rematch of last year’s Pedroli final, Natick and Franklin found themselves in the early game. The packed Mahan parking lot at 10 a.m. was an early indicator of the kind of matchup of Mass. heavyweights that was happening.

A walk-off single from Natick senior Hank Beaudoin to score classmate Will Fosberg gave the Redhawks a 5-4 victory. The lefty-hitting Beaudoin ripped a deep shot to right field that got over the Franklin player’s head and scored Fosberg, clinching the win as the Redhawks will enter the MIAA Division 1 tournament at 15-5.

Colby College-bound senior lefty Charlie Collins went all seven innings, striking out 10 and yielding five hits, two walks and three earned runs on his way to All-Tournament honors. Junior Robert Farr, Fosberg, freshman Jack Weierman and senior Jason O’Keefe all had runs batted in.

“To win a game in this tournament, especially against Franklin the last game of the season, it gives us a ton of confidence and momentum going into the tournament,” Collins said. “We’re all super happy right now, so we’ve just gotta keep that all next week and keep it going into the tournament with us.”

Franklin, meanwhile, fell to 18-3 before Monday’s regular-season finale vs. St. John’s (Shrewsbury). UMass Lowell-bound senior right-handed pitcher Alfred Mucciarone was strong in the no-decision (6 IP, 5H, 1ER, 10Ks), while offensively leading the Panthers were Ryan Gerety (1-3, 2B, R), Luke Sidwell (R, BB), Jase Lyons (2-3, 2B, 2RBI, 2R), Ben Jarosz (1-3, RBI) and Rex Cinelli (1-3). Lyons was named to the All-Tournament Team.

Tim Whelan Jr. is the sports director for the MetroWest and Milford Daily News and Wicked Local. Follow him on Twitter @thattimwhelan.

This article originally appeared on MetroWest Daily News: Hopkinton defeats Lincoln-Sudbury to win Pedroli Daily News classic