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Remember These Titans! North nine outlasts Dover to reach semis

By Seacoast Media Group - | Jun 2, 2024

North catcher Mario Ramirez, left, and Nolan Sullivan were able to repeat this celebration shown in Keene again on Saturday in Dover in a 3-1 quarterfinal win. (Photo by Hannah Schroeder / Keene Sentinel)

DOVER — They’ve got a bonus home game left.

The Nashua High School North baseball team is having a Division I tournament to remember, and they’ll get one more game in Holman Stadium that not many really expected, but it’s a biggie: The Divison I semifinals.

The No. 13 Titans scored two runs Saturday in the top of the eighth inning to down Dover, 3-1, in the quarterfinals. It was North’s second straight late 3-1 tourney win in three days.

It doesn’t get any easier for North (10-10) as it will take on No. 1 Pinkerton in Wednesday’s 7 p.m. semifinal at Holman. But the Titans will be the first Nashua team to play in the semis at Holman in several years. The Astros blanked Bedford 5-0 on Saturday.

With the game tied at 1 after seven, the Titans began extra innings by scoring two runs in the eighth, when Austin Suchecki and Ryder Clancy came to score on a passed ball and an error, and took that 3 -1 lead into the bottom of the eighth when freshman reliever Nolan Sullivan shut the door.

Dover had hopes of winning it in the bottom of the seventh when Ryan Sullivan laced a two-out double to left center, but Daniel Conrad grounded out to the mound to send the game to extra innings.

Tyler Byrne’s RBI gave the Titans a 1-0 lead in the third, but Dover (14-8) tied the game in the bottom of the fifth inning when freshman Amari Lewis drew a bases-loaded walk, knotting the game at 1-1.

Dover got eight strong innings from starter Alex Cook, who only allowed two hits and struck out six. North’s Owen Forcier pitched five strong innings of two-hit, one-run ball, fanning five, and Sullivan tossed three frames of one-hit relief to get the win. Suchecki and Mario Ramirez got North’s only hits. Clancy scored two runs.

“Today was a classic New Hampshire Division I playoff baseball game that came down to the wire,” Dover head coach Scott Dubben said. “Just didn’t go our way today. For most of the game, we played great defense, and they capitalized when we made some mistakes … we hit the ball hard all day today, it just didn’t go our way.”

(Telegraph Staff Writer Tom King contributed to this report.)