Around the Horn baseball column: Marblehead catches fire, makes slow start disappear

May 25—That 1-5 start that might have had a lot of teams concerned about the season? Th ese Magicians said 'Abracadabra' and made it disappear.

Marblehead High is one of the hottest teams in Eastern Massachusetts right now, having won 10 of its last 11 games to erase any trouble it had stumbling out of the gates. The Magicians (11-6) have won five straight and captured their last 10 league games to repeat at Northeastern Conference Lynch Division champions.

What changed? Not much other than throwing strikes and coming up with a timely, situational play here or there. The roster is dotted with experienced athletes who've won championships in football, boys basketball or hockey (not to mention baseball), so there was no panic when things didn't go their way in April.

"The big thing in high school sports is that if you can get athletes and put them in the right position, then sprinkle in some natural baseball players, you're going to be in great shape," said Marblehead head coach Mike Giardi. "We have a lot of seniors, we're carrying a big squad, and we've got a lot of guys on the bench that might be starters in other years. Everybody finds a way to contribute."

One of Marblehead's best pure athletes also happens to be one of its best baseball players. Outfielder Schuyler Schmitt is having a ridiculous season with 27 hits (.482 average), 24 runs scored and 20 RBI. He's a career .380 hitter who would be a threat for 100 career hits if he hadn't lost the 2020 season to COVID-19.

As an all-star soccer player, Schmitt has lettered in basketball and took up the high jump in indoor track this past winter. All he did was make the podium at the All-State and New England championship meets.

"He's such an incredible athlete ... if he had played basketball I don't know where I would've put him, but you can't keep an athlete like that off the floor," said Giardi, also the Magicians' boys basketball head coach. "Last week he had a catch where he's running in after the ball, it hit off the heel of his glove, bounced off his chest and he reached out with his other hand and caught it ... and he made it look easy."

Brady Lavender has also been with Marblehead's varsity since he was a freshman. His ultra-productive senior season (19 runs scored) is even more impressive since he missed two years of competitive baseball: 2020 in the pandemic and 2021 due to a knee injury.

"Brady is so good at taking pitches but not wasting at-bats. A lot of kids will take pitches, but get behind and make easy outs. He just has a sense of how to work an at-bat," said Giardi, remembering the first time he saw Schmitt and Lavender along with his trusted lieutenant, the late Steve Gridley

"Grids told me 'These two kids just have it.' It's really hard to teach. It's an innate ability to let the ball travel, see it well out of the pitcher's hand, and then great hands of their own. You add great speed to that and it's tough to top."

Shortstop Liam McIlroy is another outstanding multi-sport athlete and multi-year contributor. He's knocked home 18 runs while batting .421. Shane Keough is among the NEC leaders in RBI with 25. James Doody has carved out a key role in the batting order; so have A.J. Andriano, Matt Titus and Craig Michalowski.

Andy Titus took over at catcher for graduated brother Charlie and helped a mostly new pitching staff learn the ropes. Ian Maude pounds the strike zone and sits among the area leaders with six wins. Drew Whitman is a good strikeout artist, while Andriano and Bjorn Pluss have been reliable out of the bullpen.

In an age where baseball IQ can be hard to come by, Marblehead has its share of heady ballplayers. That's no accident. While they'll still grind through pickoff, bunts and coverages at practice, they've taken to scrimmages that simulate any number of game situations to hone those skills.

"They have fun with it. The guys really get after it and get after each other," Giardi said. "You can try to create those things in practice or talk through them, but when they have to deal with on on a game level that's when it really sinks in." — This weekend's Doug Mullins Memorial Tournament will revamp the baseball showcase at Fraser Field with Lynn English, St. Mary's Lynn, Lynn Classical and Swampscott competing Friday and Saturday. The new tournament sort of takes the place of the Nipper Clancy tourney last played in 2019 and is a fine tribute to Mullins, who was head coach at Lynn English before he passed away at age 34 after a courageous cancer battle.

"I remember in my first Clancy he beat us when he was pitching for Classical," said Swampscott coach Joe Caponigro, who was head coach at English for many years before coming home to Swampscott. He recommended Mullins for the Bulldogs head job when he stepped down.

"He was such a solid guy, an unbelievable and loyal person. He's the kind of guy you'd like your daughter to bring home and I don't think there's any better compliment than that." — There was much confusion over the Northeastern Conference standings over the last two weeks, so we'll do our best to clarify.

The 10-team NEC's current format had two divisions: the Lynch, consisting of Danvers, Marblehead, Masconomet, Saugus and Beverly; and the Dunn, consisting of Marblehead, Swampscott, Peabody, Winthrop and Salem.

The current league schedule rotation calls for two games against teams in your own division and one against the other side for a total of 13. Teams can have as many as 20 games, which means schools can schedule seven others as they see fit. The close bus rides and tight knit nature of the NEC mean many rivals in opposite divisions played each other twice anyway — with the big caveat being that second game is a "non-league" contest.

Hence Marblehead's losses to Gloucester and Masconomet didn't technically count in the NEC standings. Danvers had one "non-league" loss against an NEC foe and Beverly didn't have any, though they play a "non-league" game with Marblehead on Wednesday.

Swampscott also didn't have any, a particularly vexing fact for the Big Blue since their 9-4 NEC record would've bene enough to win the NEC Dunn but fell two games shy of archrival Marblehead (11-2) in the Lynch. — Note that this weekend's James Geanoulis Memorial Tournament games in Peabody will be at 1 p.m. and 4 p.m. on Saturday, since the city has been unable to procure new light bulbs for most of the light posts at Bezemes Diamond.

It's the 10th playing of the tourney in memory of teacher, coach and umpire James Geanoulis in the 12th season, since it couldn't be played in 2020 or '21 thanks to the pandemic. The host Tanners, who last won it in 2016, play newcomer Pentucket in the first round and Andover (which won in 2017-18) faces Wakefield. 2019 champ Austin Prep did not return. — I'm comfortable saying there are not two more valuable pitchers in the state than Danvers' Joe Zamejtis and Mike Moroney. The Falcons' chances of winning an NEC title were bleak when they lost to Masconomet last Wednesday. Zamejtis and Moroney then went out and threw back-to-back shutouts and now Danvers is Dunn division co-champs.

The two co-aces have thrown 80 percent of Danvers' innings this year and have nine of their 11 wins. Their combined earned run average is 1.71 and they've got 142 strikeouts with 87 for Zamejtis and 55 for Moroney.

It's Danvers' first league title since 2018, first for coach Shawn Secondini and has to be the program's first without Roger Day involved since Jimmy Carter was President of the United States. — Over in Beverly, Jon Cahill also earned his first league title as head coach, and his program's first since 2018. The Panthers needed only one win in their last three league games to share the title and got it on Monday after dropping chances against Danvers and Marblehead, the latter of which enabled the Falcons to share the crown (Danvers assistant Eric Mack joked that he'd like to buy the Magicians a pizza party).

At any rate the Panthers got their share of the crown and have consistently been one of the best teams on the North Shore.

"Anytime our guys come back to the gym, to be able to look at those NEC champs banners and see the '22 baseball program up there on the wall means a lot," said Cahill. "That's something they can never take away from you." — You may notice a discrepancy between Bishop Fenwick's record on the field (11-9) and their record in the state power rankings (9-11). The Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association deemed the Crusaders had to forfeit three midseason games in which they used an ineligible player and two of those bouts (against Manchester Essex and Cardinal Spellman) were Fenwick wins.

While Fenwick lost the other (to Bishop Feehan), it is now entered as a 5-0 game. MIAA rules call for baseball forfeits to be 5-0 scores because margin of victory is a component of the power ranking.

In other years falling under .500 might cost Fenwick a playoff berth, but they've consistently been in the top 25 of Division 3 all season. In all likelihood, the forfeits will only cost them seeding, and perhaps, a first or second round home game.

Nonetheless, coach Matt Antonelli's club is one of the hottest in the state. They're 9-2 in their last 11 games and go to the playoffs having won four in a row. Nick Villano is turning into one of the area's most dangerous clean-up hitters and Costa Beechin and Gianni Mercurio are seemingly always on base. — Around the Horn, a column on North Shore baseball, appears in The Salem News each Wednesday during the spring. Contact Matt Williams at MWilliams@salemnews.com and follow along on Twitter @MattWilliams_SN #StrikeOutALS