April 12, 2023 – Story and photos by Joshua Ross
It took longer than they would have liked, but Hingham baseball got their first win of the season vs Scituate on Wednesday by a score of 5-0. They improve to 1-2 on the season after a tough 2-1 loss in the season opener in Silver Lake and loss to Marshfield earlier this week 12-6.
Junior Teddy Swanson started his first varsity game on the mound and he pitched like a seasoned veteran throwing a complete game shutout. While allowing only two hits, two walks, and striking out seven, his most impressive out came in the third when he fell behind 3-0 on the batter and battling back to strike him out to end the Scituate threat and the inning.
Hingham scored first in the bottom of the 4th when junior Chris Volpe knocked in two with a two out single. Senior Alex McGowan drove in Volpe with one of his two doubles on the day. The Harbormen added another in the 5th on a balk and senior Noah Ross bunted in a run down the third base line in the 6th.
“I’m feeling pretty good after that,” Swanson said after the game. “It’s nice to get the nerves of my first start out. I saw Scituate didn’t do too well against Silver Lake, so I thought I would get a few good innings, but I definitely didn’t think I was going to go all the way.”
With no varsity experience under his belt, Swanson said he relied a lot on his coaches and teammates in tough situations.
“I missed my spots early in the inning,” he explained about the third inning. “I just need to trust my catcher. Trust coach Devito to make the right calls. I know I have a good defense behind me. I just got to put the ball over the plate. The energy on the bench was pretty high. Students started gathering around the dugout. Everything was pretty hyped up.”
While he may have been surprised how long he lasted in his debut, head coach Frank Niles was not caught off guard.
“I wasn’t that surprised,” Niles said. “Teddy is pretty experienced. I thought he could go out there and be posed and have a chance to have a good outing and he did it. I’m pretty happy about that. We needed it.”
Even in a high pressure situation, Niles was impressed with how his rookie starter handled it.
“He stood tall for sure,” Niles went onto say about his performance in the third inning. “He got out of that with runners on second and third and no outs with a couple of pop-ups. Then their best hitter was up there. It’s very difficult. That’s a situation with a base open we try to give him nothing good to hit and hope he swings at some borderline pitches. He did a great job. He was down 3-0 and threw a strike, then a curveball, then a change-up. Now the coaches call the pitches but you still need to go out and execute and that was one of the biggest moments of the game for sure.”
As far as the beginning of the season goes, Coach says the only thing that has surprised him is the inability of getting some things done.
“I think we can be better,” he explains. “Continue to be better. This is a good first step. I think our guys can do it. They just need to go out and prove it. Some of our players, especially our 10th graders, have a little bit more expectation this year and that’s a challenge. They’ll all come around.”
The boys look to make it two in a row on Friday when they travel south to take on Plymouth North.