Grafton DeMolay Wins State Title

Grafton is not only home to the latest DeMolay Chapter in Massachusetts but also home to the DeMolay State Softball Champions.

Ben Franklin DeMolay of Grafton and John Eliot DeMolay of Natick combined forces to win this year’s DeMolay State Softball title over Old Colony Chapter of Quincy July 16 in Waltham.

The games began at 8:30 am with the combo team of Ben Franklin/John Eliot facing off against the team from North Shore and Middleborough taking on South Coastal.

The Ben Franklin/John Eliot game made it into the fifth inning, but really wasn’t a contest as the boys from Ben Franklin/John Eliot scored 17 runs in the first inning. They were well on their way to a rout from there.

They led the rest of the game and at one point had a 31-0 lead over their brothers from North Shore. North Shore finally scored a couple runs in the bottom of the fifth inning to lose the game by mercy, 32-2.

Everyone from the combined team contributed but Justin Cargill and Alan Long from Ben Franklin led the way. Their offensive onslaught included Cargill hitting a homerun every time he got up and Long going 6-for-6 and hitting three home runs. Mike Mercurio helped the cause with a spectacular pitching performance.

JG won their game and advanced to face the Ben Franklin/John Eliot team. The game was a hard-fought, back-and-forth battle for the first four innings with the scored being 7-5 after 4 innings.

Ben Franklin/John Eliot had a slight edge over their JG brothers but JG came back to tie the score in the top of the 5^th inning. The boys from Ben Franklin/John Eliot wouldn’t have any of that and mounted a flurry of offense in the bottom of the fifth inning. They scored 12 runs to once again to mercy their foes 19-7 in the bottom of the fifth inning. 

For the third game, Ben Franklin/John Eliot got off to a slow start and went down 2-0 after 2 innings but they never stopped believing and brought the score even at 5-5 after 3 innings.

The top of the fourth would prove to be all they would need to win the game as they scored 7 more runs and took a forfeit victory over the boys from OCD, 12-7.

Lady Luck had seemed to be on Ben Franklin/John Eliot’s side as they had outscored their opponents 63-14 and hadn’t had to play a game beyond the fifth inning all day. They would once again have to sit out for another couple hours awaiting the winner of the JG vs OCD game. OCD had to recruit one of their members on the state suite to fill-in for their downed brother.

They would have been forced to drop out of the competition if they couldn’t find someone to fill their eighth slot. They defeated the JG team handily and once again had to face Ben Franklin/John Eliot in the championship game. The championship came down to the 7^th inning with the Ben Franklin/John Eliot team losing 11-8 going into their last at bat.

Joe Collins, who had been a consistent hitter all day for Ben Franklin, led off with a double to get on base for Ben Franklin/John Eliot. Joey Williams, who had been on a tear hitting the ball all over the place most of the day, got up and hit a single to center field that drove Joe Collins in making it 11-9.

 Steven Knott got up and ripped one past the shortstop to make it 11-10.  Spencer Lynch got up next and showed great patience in drawing a walk from the OCD pitcher. Mike Mercurio, who struggled most of the day at bat, made it count this time with a shot to right center that moved Spencer to third for the winning run.

At the end of the day, Ben Franklin and John Eliot proved too much for their competition. They not only won the softball championship but the win helped John Eliot move into first in the overall standings for the coveted Ludwig Cup, to be awarded next month at DeMolay’s Annual Conclave at Nichols College.