Bats & pitching combined to top East Boston, 6-1

Published June 14, 2019

By JENNIFER GENTILE

MELROSE—The Melrose Red Raider baseball team took a first round win in the Div. 2 North tournament when they beat #6 seed East Boston on the road Friday, June 7 by a score of 6-1. The win punched their ticket to quarterfinals against Greater Lowell (see accompanying story) on Monday.

It was a super performance from senior captain Harry Kelley in his final high school appearance on the mound for MHS. The All-Conference pitcher fanned 7 and gave up just one run and 5 hits. “Harry was dialed in today and he was very effective in the zone,” says Melrose coach Scott Searles. “For sure, one of his best starts of the season.”

SENIOR CAPTAIN Harry Kelley led Melrose to a 6-1 victory over East Boston on June 7. The Bentley bound ace also earned All-Conference honors. (Steve Karampalas photo)

East Boston was an evasive rival. Though a higher seed, the Jets weren’t too familiar to coach Searles. “The tough part about playing those Boston city schools is that there is so may teams in the conference that most of them just play each other. It makes it difficult to find anyone that has scouting reports. We knew virtually nothing about them. But between Harry [Kelley] Liam [Crovo] and myself, we used the first time through the order to come up with a game plan and the guys executed it perfectly.”

Melrose’s top of the order delivered big at the plate, with Matt McDonough (2-3) and Matt Morrissey (2-3) smacking the ball and Harry Kelley and Liam Crovo coming up big with two RBIs to help Melrose get the playoff win. 

“Every time that part of the order came through, they tacked on runs. It was impressive,” says Searles, acknowledging that the Jets’ two pitchers threw quality stuff. “They both threw hard and had two good off speed pitches. It’s unusual to see a high school pitcher with one good off speed pitch, much less two.”

The win earned Melrose their 11th victory of the season and advanced them to quarterfinal action against #3 Greater Lowell.