Franklin Post 75 walks off with second consecutive Massachusetts American Legion baseball championship – The Boston Globe

Moser scored the winning run when Dominic Caccavelli’s bases-loaded fielders’ choice with two outs induced a Shrewsbury throwing error to first base.

Franklin showed its fight, following its worst defensive half-inning in a long time with a terrific showing at the plate. The team didn’t drop a game in the double-elimination tournament, bringing their record to 24-0.

“We haven’t been down all year like that, and then we’re down big and we could have just packed it in and had to play a second game,” said Franklin coach Tyler Pasquarosa. “But it’s just a special group that just refuses to be defeated, no matter what the circumstances are.”

Making three errors in the top of the seventh, Franklin players watched their 3-2 lead evaporate into a 5-3 deficit. But Wheaton commit Tyler Bellan (1 for 2, 2 RBIs), who also had three RBIs in Franklin’s championship clincher last year, knew his team wouldn’t dwell on its miscues.

“When we got down that inning, I knew all we had to do was get three outs then battle back that last inning, get some runners on, get some pressure on,” Bellan said. “We made them make plays and it worked out in our favor.”

The bottom half of the seventh proved to be huge for Moser, who had quite a tournament with a .588 batting average, 2 homers and 6 RBIs, the biggest knock being his two-run double vs. Shrewsbury.

“[Shrewsbury pitcher Brady Shea] missed on a curveball, so I was looking fastball,” Moser said. “I didn’t want to be late, so I was on time. I didn’t try to simplify it, went the opposite way.”

Merrimack rising sophomore Chris Goode earned tournament MVP, pairing good hitting (.571 average, 2 homers, 8 RBIs) with stellar defensive play in center field. In his third year playing Legion ball with Franklin Post 75, Goode, a 2022 Franklin High graduate, saw the team win two state championships after never having won one in high school.

“It’s always a blessing to win a state championship with your hometown,” he said. “Back in high school we made it to the state championship and lost. To come here and win it twice in a row for the Legion team is huge.”

Both teams had already clinched a spot in the Northeast Regionals, with Shrewsbury advancing as regional host. Leading up to the game, Pasquarosa mulled whether to rest some of his players with regionals scheduled to start next week. But once the team arrived Natick, Franklin pulled no punches.

“They’ve come out here and played their butts off every night for the last 30 days or whatever it was,” Pasquarosa said. “We never play the game to lose, and the more I thought about it, I don’t care about anything else except this game today — this first game — and we’re going to play to win that game.

“They deserve to be state champions, so we went after it.”

Both teams start regional play on Wednesday, August 2. Franklin will face the Connecticut champion at 4:30 p.m., followed by Shrewsbury, which will face the Rhode Island champion.