Tide baseball blasts Chelsea to inch closer to the state tournament

After taking on Lynn English, Everett heads to Malden later today (May 9) to avenge an earlier heartbreaker against the Golden Tornadoes

By Joe McConnell

With only seven games left on the regular season schedule, the Everett High School baseball team (7-6) is very much in control of its own destiny. Last week, however, the Crimson Tide had a mixed bag of results that could have been better.

The Everett boys began the week with a 12-2 victory over Greater Boston League rival Chelsea on April 30, but two days later they dropped a 20-5 decision to non-league host Charlestown, a team that they had already defeated 10-7 on April 11.

Against visiting Chelsea, Everett jumped out to a 9-0 lead after two innings, and never looked back in this five-inning mercy rule game.

“Our pitchers (Isaiah Goffigan and Jose Portillo) were quite effective throwing first pitch strikes,” said coach Malik Love. “Over 50% of their pitches put the Chelsea batters in the hole right way.”

Goffigan pitched the first two innings, giving up just one hit, while striking out four. Portillo relieved him on the mound to secure the win over the next three innings. He issued two hits, one walk and two runs, none earned. He too fanned four.

The Everett offense outhit the Red Devils, 9-3. Sophomore Tyler Freni helped paced the attack with two singles, one triple and a walk, and as a result was responsible for three RBI. He also scored three runs. Reinaldo Santiago was credited with a double and a triple, knocking in a run. Senior first baseman Chris O’Neil doubled in a run, and scored a run, as well. Charles Govostes and Jevaun Berberena each had a single and a walk, and scored a run. Freshman M.J. Guida did the same with a single and a walk, while driving home one and scoring one.

In the Charlestown game, Love summed it up rather succinctly. “They were hitting, and we were not making the routine plays early on in the game,” he said. “We had one bad inning, and that was in the first, when Charlestown took a double-digit lead on us right away, but after that we settled down, and played a much better game.”

Love praised last week’s contributions of O’Neil, who had a double in both contests. “(O’Neil) really stepped up for us in these two games,” he said.

Heading into a new week, Monday’s game (May 5) against Lynn Classical was postponed, because of rain. The Tide was then scheduled to return to the diamond two days later versus visiting Lynn English after press deadline. They will close out this week later today (May 9) against host Malden at 4 p.m., hoping to turn around a 3-2 heartbreaker on April 28, before going up against Somerville (May 12, 4 p.m.) and Revere (May 14, 4 p.m.) next week in a couple of more road encounters. They need just three more wins in the next seven games to clinch a Division 1 state tournament berth.