Caleb Penn ’27 throws baseball in close loss against Winchendon.
4/25 – Andover: 6, Winchendon: 7
4/26 – Andover: 3, Poly Prep: 7
4/29 – Andover: 2, Dexter Southfield: 9
Boys Baseball (4-8) faced off against three schools in the span of three days. Ultimately, it lost in all its matchups.
According to Miles O’Neil ‘28, its first game against Winchendon started out slow, with the team being down five runs. However, it continued to push, bringing the score up to 6-7 and only narrowly losing the game.
“At the start of the game, we left a bunch of runs and we didn’t score. It was 7-2. But then, we kept on going. We played great on defense after that. Our pitching did great after letting in a couple runs, we hit great, and got the game to 7-6. And then we had a chance to win, but we couldn’t get it done,” said O’Neil.
Throughout the comeback, Mikah Krystofolski ’27 was a consistent contributor. O’Neil praised him for both his hits and contributions at shortstop.
“Mikah did really well. He had a really good base clearing double that put us right back into the game, and he also played good at shortstop. I would say he was the MVP [most valuable player] that day due to those hits,” said O’Neil.
According to Austin Stern ‘27, Saturday’s matchup against Poly Prep Country Day School (Poly Prep), located in Brooklyn, New York, was a memorable one. The bus drive there and back totaled nearly eleven hours, and Poly Prep proved to be a competitive team.
“It was a really cool experience to be able to go into the city. It was really fun. Obviously, away games are always pretty special, [including] getting on the bus with your buddies and playing a really good team. We faced an opponent who [had a player] committed to Duke, so obviously he’s a really talented kid. I’m actually really happy with how we played. It was an all out battle,” said Stern.
Stern continued, “We had to make some adjustments in the box, definitely, to kind of keep up with what we were facing on the other side. But Mikah got us going with a knock, and then after that, we just stayed in it. We played better than the score represents, but it was definitely a battle against a really good team and a really good match overall.”
Stern also noted weather complications halfway through the match, making the game dynamic more challenging and pushing the team to play harder.
“It started to rain halfway through the game. So, we were fighting with the conditions as well as just continuously taking good at bats. We made an adjustment where we started off at bat with a two strike approach, which allowed us to attack pitches that we wanted to early on in the counts. That was probably the biggest thing, changing that approach,” said Stern.
Returning from a long weekend of games, the team played at home against Dexter Southfield School on Monday. With this being the team’s second matchup against the school this year, tensions were certainly high. Michael Doherty ‘27 described the tough defeat.
“We went down a bunch in the first inning, and towards the end of the game, we were able to score a couple runs. The final score was 9-2, so it definitely could have been better. We went through a lot of pitchers, and we had some errors and weren’t really hitting well either,” said Doherty.
Learning from the loss, Doherty expressed the team’s commitment to preparing for the next. Doherty believes the team has much to work on in all aspects of the game.
“We’re going to definitely clean up our defense and get our pitchers in shape to be ready for Saturday. [We have] two games, [and] we’re going to use a lot of pitchers. We have had everybody ready and all hands on deck,” said Doherty.
Boys Baseball will face Phillips Exeter Academy this Saturday, Brooks School on Monday, and Cushing Academy on Wednesday.
