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McIntosh, Hillies slay Central

Tuesday, May, 03 By Hector Longo

HAVERHILL – Roll out the carpet and Haverhill High can play a little baseball now, can't they?
Days after stunning Lawrence High, the Hillies blanked Central Catholic, 3-0, here at Trinity Stadium to move to 7-6 on the year, 4-2 on the artificial stuff here at home.

Mike McIntosh improved to 4-1 on the hill with nothing short of a monster performance, spacing eight Central hits and a walk in the complete-game shutout.

“He competed like a demon all day long,” said Central coach Marc Pelletier of the senior righty.

The Raiders put runners on in every inning, only to be denied by McIntosh.

“I've been reminding (coach Paul Sartori) him for weeks that Central was coming. This is one that I wanted to pitch,” said McIntosh. “I've been bugging him about it, dropping hints at practice.

“Today was like the longest day in school. I was bouncing around in my seat all day. It's one we really needed.”

In the end, Central stranded 11, including two in the sixth and three in the seventh as they loaded the bases with one out, only to have McIntosh fan the final two hitters to end it.

McIntosh has been an absolute godsend for the Hillies, going 35 innings and dropping the ERA to a mere 1.20.

Of course, Haverhill needed to squeeze out some kind of offense, not an easy task against Central junior Sam Lara, the St. John's University commit.

The Hillies broke through in the fifth when leadoff man Jordan Perez opened the frame with a solid single.

Jake Dion squared to sacrifice but took a Lara heater off the leg to make it first-and-second. The runners didn't sit still for long as Alec Steed unloaded a rocket deep to the right-center field game, opening the score at 2-0.

Steed would later score a second insurance run on Kyle Bellemore's infield out.

It was all the offense the McIntosh would need.

Lara went 4.1 innings before being replace by Johandy Gonzalez, who retired five of the seven hitters he saw in relief to limit the damage.