Sports Recap: Winchester Baseball Team Showed Improvement

After ending last season with a winning record (11-10), the had aspirations of challenging for a league title this year.

The Sachems wound up losing their first four games and could never
fully recover, but coach David Blanchard said it was still a good
year.

"From a record standpoint we were a little disappointed," Blanchard
said. "Unfortunately we let a few games we all thought we could win
slip through our fingers. But in the end we had good young men and
coachable guys that made it an enjoyable season."

After opening with losses to Medford, Reading, Stoneham and Lexington, Winchester (7-13) earned its first win with an

That started the Sachems most successful run of the season as the team won five of its next seven games. A pair of two-game winning streaks included back-to-back wins over Watertown (13-11) and Burlington (5-1) and over Reading (4-3) and Stoneham (7-1).

"We showed we have the potential to beat some of the top teams,"
Blanchard said. "We beat Burlington twice this year, we beat Reading
the second time around. I thought we played pretty well against
Lexington the two times we played."

Though the Sachems were 5-6 at that point, they weren't able to ride
the momentum to another playoff berth. Winchester lost 7 of its last
9, giving up at least 10 runs in five of those games. That including a
wild 17-16 loss to Wakefield and a 20-4 season-ending loss to
Lynnfield.

The team was led offensively by senior Connor Steckel, who batted .493 and led the Sachems in practically every offensive category and was the model of consistency.

"He didn't slump at all," Blanchard said. "Usually you see someone
have a week where it doesn't go very well, but he was only hitless in
one or two games. He was outstanding."

The defensive MVP was pitcher Jed Robinson, a three-year starter who
had five of Winchester's seven wins. He will go to prep school at Avon
Old Farms next year.

Both Steckel and Robinson were Middlesex League first-team all-stars.