Needham Post 14 Eliminated by North Attleboro in Regional Playoffs

• Playing against each other for the third time in four days, North Attleboro got the best of Needham, evening the season series at 2-2. 

Needham Post 14’s season came to a close on Tuesday, July 22, when they fell 8-3 to North Attleboro Post 49.

The loss marks the end of another strong season for the team, which finished 14-8 and just one game short of reaching the state tournament for the second straight year.

Adam Hess got things started in the first with an RBI groundout to put Needham up 1-0 early. But, North Attleboro responded, putting up five runs on Post 14 pitcher Garrett Falahee in the bottom half of the inning to take a 5-1 lead. 

Needham made noise in the second, loading the bases, but they were unable to push any of those runners across home plate, and went into the third down by four. 

With the bases loaded again, Colin O’Donnell drew a walk to chip the North Attleboro lead to 5-2. Unfortunately, the scoring would end there, and Post 14 left three runners stranded for the second inning in a row.

In the bottom of the third, North Attleboro extended their lead to 8-2 on a three-run single from Mike Huntington, who hit a high pop-up off Needham reliever Eli Warn that dropped between the Post 14 defenders in shallow right. After a few defensive miscues, Huntington advanced to second, and the third runner came around to score.

After two scoreless innings, Post 14 scored in the sixth on a wild pitch from North Attleboro reliever Dillion Waterhouse to make it a five run game.

They loaded the bases again in the seventh, but with two outs, Connor Falahee hit a ground ball to the shortstop, who threw over to first for the final out, for a close play at the bag.

The loss ends Needham’s season, as North Attleboro advances to the state tournament, which begins on Saturday, July 26. Post 14 stranded 14 runners on base in the loss, and struck out seven times, all looking.

Sports anchor Mike Levin has the highlights from this game below:

The highlights above ran as part of the Needham Channel News, a weekly newscast airing on The Needham Channel every Thursday at 7:30pm. The Needham Channel News can be found on the Community Channel: Comcast 9, Astound 15 and Verizon 29. Most Thursdays it also can be viewed on our HD Channel on Verizon 2129, Astound 613 and streaming on this site.