Souhegan players mob Matt Silk after his walk-off hit vs. Hollis Brookline at Bill Dod Family Field. (Telegraph photo by TOM KING)

AMHERST – Smooth as Silk.

That was the feeling at Bill Dod Family Field after Saber Matt Silk boomed a hit completely over the Hollis Brookline outfield with two on and two out in the bottom of the seventh. That gave the Souhegan High School baseball team a walk off 3-2 win over the Cavs, their second win over HB in five days.

With runners on first and second and Souhegan down to its last out, trailing 2-1, Silk got a a 1-0 hanger off Cavs reliever Ben George that he sent soaring over the outfielders’ heads in center, and may still be rolling.

“He’d been throwing it a lot, and I figured he’d come back with it after missing with the fastball,” Silk said. “I just sat on that and did my job there.”

It was just another example of how the Sabers, 9-1, are focused on trying to get back to the Division II finals after last year’s loss.

“I’d say today was probably our worst day in terms of focus,” Silk said, noting the Sabers had just beaten the Cavs a few days earlier. “But overall, throughout the year, and in my four years, this is probably the hardest working group of kids we’ve had.”

“It all comes down to focus,” Souhegan coach Chris Metz said. “We had a couple of blunders … Credit to HB, they did what they had to do. But pitching wise, we battled…We got punched, and as I told the boys, the previous three years we’d lose today. This year, this team, is so different. They keep battling.”

Metz admitted they are treating every game, especially Monday’s, as a tournament game. He had Brayden Hickman, one of the top two pitchers on the team, relieve in the top of the seventh but HB’s Renzo Bergskaug singled with one out, stole second, went to third on a grounder and scored on an error for a 2-1 HB lead.

But George plunked Saber Alex Trudel to start the seventh, walked Brady Smith after a strikeout, then caught Drew Reagan looking. Then Silk.

“It is what it is,” HB coach Alex Pratt said. “We battled them hard last Thursday, we came out again and battled again. These are the games that will build character and help us later on in the season, I’m hoping.”

The Cavs are now 6-2, but what they’ve done the first month of the season with a young team coming off a rough 2024 has been almost miraculous. Yesterday they had six underclassmen in the lineup, including three freshmen.

“They’e not your typical underclassmen,” Pratt, an assistant on last year’s team now as the head man, said. “These are some good baseball players.”

Who he hopes appreciated what a great game yesterday’s was despite the loss. HB grabbed a 1-0 lead off Saber starter Ethan Gaudet when Ty Gryniewicz tripled and scored on a misplayed dribbler off the bat of Dylan Morelli. Gryniewicz’ younger brother, Connor, kept the poten Sabers in check over four frames, touched up by a triple by Cam Brown and RBI double by Blake Powers to tie things at 1.

“We’re a young group,” Pratt said. “These tough games are a little bit harder on the younger groups, but we’ve been holding it together pretty well. … We’re competing now, that’s where we want to be.”

The Sabers know where they want to be, right back at Manchester’s Delta Dental Stadium in mid-June.

“We talk about it every day, since (last) June 9,” Metz said. “They want it, and they’ve just got to go do what we’re supposed to do and figure it out.”

Silk, bound for Keene State in the fall, looks like he has.

“I’ve said this since he was a freshman.” Metz said, “the kid’s just a gamer, man.”

Smooth.