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By Michael Flanagan
Hometown Weekly Sports Editor
Coming off of back-to-back 11-9 seasons and trips to the MIAA State Tournament, the Needham High School varsity baseball team enters the 2018 season with high hopes. However, while the obvious goal of getting back to the tournament is priority No. 1, the Needham boys are hoping to do a little more than just get into the dance in 2018.
“We made the playoffs each of the last two seasons and we expect to be in there again,” said Needham junior pitcher Tom Chmielewski. “We have high expectations to have a much better regular season record to set us up better for the playoffs.”
Leading the Rockets this season will be four senior captains in pitcher Charlie Sumner, pitcher Charlie Roberts, catcher and returning captain Alec Sharton, as well as shortstop and Bard College commit Alex Luscher.
Needham will run a four-man pitching rotation in 2018 with the two Charlies, Sumner and Roberts, serving as a one-two punch of aces. Roberts finished the 2017 season with a team-high three shutouts. Jeff Hohler and Chmielewski will do their parts as the team’s three and four-men in the rotation. Chmielewski says that pitching will be a key strength of this year’s Needham baseball team.
“Our pitching staff is extremely strong,” said Chmielewski. “We had a team ERA of under two [runs] last year, and should be strong again this year with our rotation back.”
At the plate, the Rockets will be led by returning Bay State Conference All-Star and junior Kevin MacKenzie, while Chmielewski, Luscher, Sharton, Roberts, and junior Will Foley occupy the spots surrounding MacKenzie in the batting order. However, Chmielewski says that he and his teammates need to do more at the plate this season in order to get where they want to be, and that the addition of metal bats should only help.
“The issue last year was our offense,” said Chmielewski. “There was a bit of a lack of big hits with runners in scoring position. We don’t have a lot of power on our team, but with metal bats in the Bay State [Conference] this season, we should be more dangerous at the plate.”
As far as underclassmen, the Rockets will need a fair share to make up for the lost talent that helped lead last season’s team, such as Dakari Cox and Jack Dateo. Sophomores Steven Donovan, Kyle Lambert, Drew Siegenthaler, and Tom Berkley will all get their chances to make contributions and crack the lineup throughout the season.
“We are going to have much more depth this year,” said Chmielewski. “The freshman and JV teams had really good seasons last year and there’s a lot of guys that could come up and make an immediate impact. Steven Donovan could be a big contributor.”
The Rockets will take to the diamond for their season-opener at Catholic Memorial on April 2.
For funny and incisive sports analysis, follow Mike Flanagan on his personal Twitter at @fLAno0, or read his blog at www.flannylive.wordpress.com.
