Mahar's Magic Helps Harwich Knock Off Defending State Champion Skippers

by Eric Adler

COHASSET – There's really only one way to explain how the Harwich baseball team knocked off two-time defending state champion Cohasset, and it begins and ends with Mike Mahar.

The junior left-hander and number nine hitter worked his magic on the mound and in the batter's box, helping the Rough Riders pull off a colossal upset and keep their season afloat.

Mahar allowed only one run on four hits and drove in both of Harwich's runs, lifting the Rough Riders to a tense, 2-1 victory over the host Skippers in the MIAA Division Four South quarterfinals Wednesday afternoon.

Ninth-seeded Harwich (15-7) will take on Bristol-Plymouth at Rockland Stadium on Friday at 4 p.m.. Top-seeded Cohasset, which had won 10 straight games – and 11 straight in the post-season dating back to 2010 – ends the year 19-3.

"It's out of this world, I can't really describe how it feels right now," said Mahar, who struck out 12 and issued three walks. "I think Cohasset may have been overconfident playing against us, the No. 9 seed, but this proves that anything can happen. It's amazing."

The Skippers had won the previous six games against the Rough Riders, including a 6-1 victory over Harwich in the south sectional finals two years ago.

This season, Cohasset defeated Harwich 5-2 and 6-0 en route to their second straight South Shore League title, but those losses and all the ones before those didn't faze the resilient Rough Riders, who came into the contest a confident bunch.

"We knew the whole year we could beat this team," said Mahar. "We felt that we were the better team every time we played them, but for one reason or another, we came up short. But this time, we didn't make any mental errors and we only made a couple of physical errors. We put the ball in play and made the plays in the field."

Dan Cook, Jake Malone and Stephen Brown all had two hits for Harwich, but none were bigger than the two by Mahar, who singled in a run in the fourth and sixth innings with two strikes and two outs against him.

"I knew I had to put the ball in play, so I stayed focused and found the hole both times," said Mahar.

Just as impressive was Mahar's brilliance on the bump as he out-dueled Cohasset's top two pitchers, starter Jamie Timothy, who threw the first four frames before being relieved by Jamie Farber. The Skippers' righties allowed eight hits and struck out five, collectively.

"My curveball and fastball were working all day and I have a great catcher [Tommy Birch] calling the pitches," said Mahar. "I didn't shake him off once. He knew what to do every time and everything was just working perfectly."

Not to take anything away from Mahar, but one of the best pitches was the curveball thrown by Harwich coach Steve Wilson, who opted to go with his southpaw No. 2 starter, whom the Skipper hadn't seen before (they faced Malone in both regular season meetings).

"I tried to set this up so this would give us the best chance to win," said Wilson. "Michael kept us in the game by getting ahead of the batters and often getting the first out, which was critical against this team. In my opinion, this was the best game of his career, because of his command and his composure. He buckled down and threw strikes when Cohasset had men on base."

Both teams left runs on the board early on. Brown doubled in the second, but was later thrown out at home. Conor Goetz (2-for-3) singled to start the bottom of the frame and Shane Haggerty reached on an error, but Mahar ended the threat by striking out the final two batters.

Harwich broke through in the fourth when Malone beat out a slow-roller to the shortstop and moved up on Cook's single to shallow centerfield. Two batters later, Mahar hit a frozen rope to right to give Harwich a 1-0 lead.

Mahar added more two-out magic in the sixth when he connected again to right to bring home Malone, who singled to start off the inning and moved into scoring position when Brown drew a walk off a payoff pitch.

Cohasset cut the lead in half in the bottom of the sixth.

Goetz hit a one-out single to right, moved over when Mahar was called for a balk, and pulled into third on Terence Doonan's swinging bunt single halfway down the third base line. Haggerty followed with an RBI single to center.

Cohasset got the go-ahead run in scoring position when Harwich allowed Haggerty to take second, but Mahar got out of the pressure-packed situation by striking out pinch-hitter Mickey Barry and No. 9 hitter Christian Davis with a pair of nasty pitches at the knees.

"I knew I had to focus on the next two batters and put the ball where they couldn't hit it, so I put it down and away both times, and they missed it both times," said Mahar. "It was definitely the most nerve-wracking part of the game, but I took a deep breath, buckled down and knew that this was when I had to play my best."

Mahar had another tall task the following frame, facing the Skippers' top-of-the-order hitters, but once again he rose to the challenge.

Mahar needed just three pitches to strike out John Collins. He retrieved Farber's ensuing grounder and flipped to first to record the penultimate out, then got Timothy swinging to seal the win.

"We're very confident now having beat the number one seed," said Mahar. "There's not another team in the tournament that's as good as them, but still, we can't get overconfident and think we have every team beat. We've just to keep on playing how we're playing."

6/7/12