Salem Batsmen Win Ninth in a Row
by Tommy Gates
Salem’s Blue Devil baseball team had to play three games in three days last week against three tough foes in Trinity, Nashua South and Dover. Blue Devil manager Danny Keleher got three more terrific pitching performances and his Salem kids took all three games to raise their Class L record to 10 - 2, with their current winning streak up to nine.
Friday the Blue Devils were at home against Dover and Keleher wanted his crew to score early and play great defense in the case the rains came early. Evidently Salem’s senior southpaw pitcher, Eric Perrault, was thinking the same thing. Perrault set the first 14 Dover batters down in order and had struck out 11 batters in a row. With two outs in the top of the fifth inning, Dover pitcher Colby Mamigonian hit a dribbler up the middle past Perrault that went for an infield dingle that would turn out to be the only hit in the game for Dover. The Blue Devils already had taken a quick 2 - 0 lead in the first inning when the Blue Devils version of the “The Gold Dust Twins” leadoff batter Hal Landers and third baseman Peter Allain got on base, stole bases and then scored in the first inning, thanks to a Joe O’Dell hit and an error. Salem came back with its last four runs of the game in the last of the third inning to go up 6 - 0. Perrault got the next guy in the fifth and then proceeded to strike out four batters in the final two innings for his first shutout of his career. Perrault is 3 - 0 on the season, but as I go back in the last 40 years of high school baseball at Salem High, I can’t remember a blue Devil pitcher striking out more than 15 batters, and Perrault had 17 whiffs against Dover last Friday. I believe that he set a Salem record for strikeouts in a game.
Thursday against Nashua South, Keleher sent senior righty, Larry Weymouth out on the mound, and he got the win when he tossed six innings of two-hit ball and struck out seven batters while walking three. Weymouth yielded one lonely run in the top of the fourth inning, but by then, his teammates had given him a 6-0 lead after two innings. As they usually do, Landers and Allain got things rolling right off the bat in the first inning by getting base hits and coming around to score, giving the Blue Devils a quick 2 - 0 lead. Salem added four more runs in the second to take a 6 - 0 lead. Landers would be the hitting star of this game as he went 3 for 4 and scored two runs while driving in a run and stealing a base. Nashua South got two runs in the seventh on two hits, a walk, and an error, but the Blue Devils got the big 6 - 3 victory.
Salem started off the week in Manchester facing 6 - 2 Trinity in a giant game between Class L powers, and for the second game in a row, a hidden-ball trick pulled off by Allain, proved big down the stretch and allowed the Blue Devils to take a 4 - 3 win over the Pioneers. O’Dell pitched a very nice game and overcame seven walks, but Salem grabbed a run in the top of the first inning, and then added three more runs in the top of the third for a 4 - 0 lead. Trinity scored a pair of runs in the sixth and made it 4 - 3 in the seventh, but Allain and Salem lefty reliever Matt Hardy played the hidden-ball trick on a Pioneer runner at third base, and Allain tagged him out to protect Salem’s 4 - 3 win.
Salem Boys Tennis Atop Class L Standings
by Tommy Gates
The Blue Devil boys tennis team certainly knew what they had to do last week, and that was to out and win three big matches in three days to stay atop the Class L standings at 10 - 0. With only a couple of weeks left before they start the Class L tournament, the Blue Devils started the week off by traveling to Manchester to meet Trinity and they trounced the Pioneers 8 - 1 while sweeping all six singles sets. Mike Cohen started things off by winning 8 - 4, Jeff Bunker triumphed 8 - 1, and Bobby Pike was in peak form winning 8 - 3. Junior Joel Vastl put up a great battle to win his sets 8 - 5, before Tim Briggs breezed to an 8 - 3 win, and Chris Correia blanked his opponent 8 - 0. Bunker and Vastl won their No. 2 doubles contest 8 - 3, before Briggs and Jordan Lalconer had little trouble winning the No. 3 doubles set 8 - 1.
The next day saw Salem co-coaches Mike Jolicoeur and Gary Duranko, play the same Blue Devil lineup against the Panthers of Nashua South. The Blue Devils walked through this match 9 - 0 with everyone winning big. The toughest set of the day for Salem came at No. 1 singles where Mike Cohen won 8 - 4 and everything else was a blowout from there on. Pike, Vastl, and Briggs all won their singles contest by a score of 8 - 1, and Bunker and Correira won 8 - 0 shutouts. In doubles action, Cohen and Pike won 8 - 0, while the team of Bunker and Vastl won 8 - 1, as did the pair of Briggs and Falconer.
Friday the Salem swingers had to get business done quick before the rains came, and they did just that. Dover and Salem only got to finish their six singles sets before the skies let loose and the Blue Devils won all six singles sets. Cohen and Bunker won 8 - 3 sets in the first two contests. Pike won 8 - 2, Vastl won 8 - 1, Briggs won 8 - 3, and Correira finished it off with an 8 - 1 victory. Salem will try and keep that top spot this week when it was to host Winnacunnet on Wednesday, before heading for Derry on Friday, May 9, to take on the 6 - 3 Pinkerton Astros at 4 p.m.
Salem Girls Lacrosse 5-4 After Beating Nashua North and South
by Tommy Gates
Salem junior Kyleigh Keating scored nine goals on Friday in her team’s 17 - 6 win over Nashua North and she came back and scored eight more goals on Saturday against Nashua South in another 16 - 6 Blue Devil win that gave coach Faith Wahlen’s girls a 5 - 4 record heading into the last three weeks of the regular season.
Wahlen has liked what she’s seen from her Blue Devils the past couple of games and she says that her team has to continue to improve with big games coming up against Concord and Exeter this week, both on the road. Wahlen said, “I think our girls are getting it right now; we’ve been playing much better and they know that Concord and Exeter are going to be big games for us this week. I’d like for us to try and get a No. 4 seed heading into the playoffs, but we’ll have to wait and see how things go this week.”
Keating started her weekend assault Friday by singing the Nashua North net for nine goals. The Blue Devils enjoyed a 9 - 4 halftime lead as Wahlen also got glittering performances from defenseman Taylor Dyer, who had four goals, and her sister Tatum Dyer, who added three goals. Salem’s senior goalie, Sarah Cino, would have to make a dozen saves on the afternoon, but the Blue Devil defense shut down the Titans in the second half and had no problem coming away with the 17 - 6 win. Senior Sarah Halbich also scored for the Blue Devils and she’s come up big for Salem the next day too.
Keating got off to another great start Saturday against the Nashua South Panthers as they’d grab a 10 - 4 cushion at the break. Keating would score eight goals here, with Halbich adding three as they would get over the .500 mark at 5 - 4. Salem goalie Sarah Cino was called upon to make nine saves in this 16 - 6 win and the Blue Devils got five other goals from different players. Sarah Viehl, Tatum Dyer, Taylor Dyer, Nicole Rozumek, and Alissa Horta all tallied goals, while assists in this game went to Keating, Halbich, Rozumek, Horta, Tatum Dyer, and Avery Neusch had a pair.
Salem Girls Softball Record 8-3 with Three Wins and Two Shutouts
by Tommy Gates
I just hope that Timberlane and Londonderry aren’t doing too much celebrating after they beat the Salem softball team two weeks ago, because there’s three weeks left in the regular season, and then the playoffs will begin. Coach Harold Sachs and his Blue Devils won their three games last week by a combined score of 31 - 1 as the team got some tough pitching and timely hitting.
Friday in Dover, Dominque Heres and Dover’s Ashley Morse were deadlocked in a tough pitching duel. Dover would outhit Salem six to four in this game, but three of Salem’s four hits came off the bat of senior Katie Bettencourt. After four scoreless innings, Bettencourt drove home Julia Grat with the only run of the game in the top of the fifth inning and Heres would do the rest on the mound for Salem. Heres gave up six hits and struck out six, while walking nobody as she raised her record to 3 - 0 with the shutout. Both teams had entered this game with identical 7 - 3 records, so this game was big for the Blue Devils.
Stephanie Cabral spotted Nashua South a 1 - 0 lead in the first inning before her teammates came to the rescue and pounded out 17 hits in romping to a 16 - 1 victory. The Panthers were 5 - 3 coming into this game so the Blue Devils needed to get their bats going. Bettencourt has been red-hot for Salem and she’d go 4 - 4 in this game with two runs driven in and three runs scored. Alex Gallant drove in three runs with her two hits and Sarah Bracken added a bases loaded triple and the Blue Devils scored six runs in the top of the seventh inning to run away with a 16 - 1 decision. Freshman Stephanie Cabral picked up the victory on the mound to raise her record to 3 - 0. Val Boutin had two hits on the day for the Blue Devils’ as did Amanda Vaudreuil.
Salem started off the week by bombing Trinity 14 - 0 in just five innings. Heres pitched four perfect innings to earn the win. Bettencourt and Gallant had two hits each and both drove in a pair of runs. Bracken had another three-run triple, and it looks as if this young Blue Devil team is starting to get hot for the end of the regular season and the playoffs.
22-0 Blue Devils Win State Title over Trinity - 2008 Class L Boys Basketball Champions
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