Love era makes successful debut on the baseball diamond with mercy rule win over Chelsea

Everett is scheduled to host non-league Lowell at Glendale Friday afternoon

By Joe McConnell

Everett High School (EHS) has a new baseball coach, and he comes to Tide country via Tennessee. He’s Malik Love, and he enjoyed much success as a multi-sport athlete (baseball, football, basketball) at Alcoa High School in Alcoa, Tenn. He was on its varsity baseball team for three years, starting when he was a sophomore. During that sophomore campaign, he batted over .400. The team that year went to the regionals, where they lost in the finals to Pigeon Forge High School in Sevier County.

Pigeon County’s star pitcher Wil Crowe, who was drafted by the Washington Nationals in the 2017 MLB (Major League Baseball) Draft when he was a senior at the University of South Carolina, was on the mound that day. Crowe made his big-league debut with Washington in 2020. He pitched for the Pittsburgh Pirates the last three years. He’s now playing in Japan.

Love, who captained the baseball team in his senior year, also played AAU baseball in Knoxville, before heading to the University of New Hampshire, where he was a wide receiver on its football team. He graduated from there with a bachelor’s degree in recreational management and policy in 2019. He then attended Stony Brook University on Long Island in New York to earn his master’s degree in Liberal Arts with a focus on coaching. He turned pro in Mexico’s Liga de Futbol Americano for Monterrey, where he secured a spot on its roster after going through practice sessions for eight weeks. He played just one game, but it was a memorable one with 10 receptions and one touchdown. He then had tryouts with Edmonton and British Columbia in the Canadian Football League, before giving up his pro dreams and moving to the Boston area. He was a wide receivers coach this past fall on coach Justin Flores’ EHS staff after serving as the JV coach on coach Joel Levine’s staff last spring. When Levine decided to step down for family reasons, the Everett High teacher got the promotion to the varsity.

The Tide last year made the Division 1 state tournament as the 42^nd seed after finishing up the regular season with a 10-10 record. They went on to lose to Braintree in the preliminary round, 9-3.

But this is a new year, and Love made a successful debut as the Tide’s varsity coach after his squad came alive late to beat Chelsea in a five-inning mercy rule game at Glendale Park Tuesday afternoon, 14-4.

Junior Isaiah Goffigan pitched the first three innings. Reinaldo Santiago then threw the final two frames to earn the win. The Tide scored a combined total of 12 runs in the fourth and fifth innings to break open a close game.

Freshman Armani Negron helped pace the attack with a double against the Red Devils. His classmate Derek Soper, who is one of the team’s captains, was credited with a triple. Senior Justin Longmore is the other captain this spring.

Alex Lara, Nordeivy Santana, Albert Santana, Santiago and Longmore are the returning varsity veterans.

“We’ll have a very competitive, hard working group this year,” promises Love.

Weather permitting, the Tide is scheduled to host non-league Lowell later today (April 5) at Glendale Park, starting at 4:15 p.m. Lynn Classical comes to town Tuesday to face the Everett boys at 4 p.m. Lynn English follows them to Glendale the next day at the same time.