Magrath, Medfield Baseball Slam Millis

Medfield High School senior second baseman Jim Magrath stepped into the batter's box with two outs in the bottom of the fourth inning of a 1-1 game with the bases loaded and broke it open with one swing of the bat.

"What I like best about it is probably the most polished baseball player we have is Brian McCloud and it looked at three pitches just prior [to Magrath's plate appearance]," said Medfield head coach Matt Marenghi. "I'm convinced nobody wants to come up bigger in that situation than Brian and he didn't, which is going to happen from time to time and Jimmy picked him up. That's a sign of a great team and I could not have been prouder of that moment."

Magrath's grand gesture to pick up his teammate was in the form of a shot to dead center that cleared the 347 foot marker over the fence for a grand slam and a 5-1 Warriors' lead. 

"Jimmy coming through for his teammate," said Marenghi. "Brian wanted to come through for his team and couldn't so [Magrath] did it instead. That's why you bat that guy two. It's good to see."

Magrath's grand slam came one inning after he roped an RBI double down the left field line to score McCloud and tie the game at one and finished with a double and home run and five RBI. 

After the four-run fourth inning, Medfield never looked back, tacking on three more runs in the fifth and shutting down Millis' bats after allowing a run on a passed ball in the top of the third inning, giving the Mohawks an early 1-0 lead. 

"[Millis pitcher Derek Latosek] started to get a blister on his finger and you could see him messing with it," said Marenghi. "He clearly wasn't as effective come the fourth inning as he had been up to that point. He was downright dominant, six strikeouts in two innings. That's a good wake up call for us. We are going to run into guys that are pretty good and they can beat us by that's why we get more than one at-bat for them and we have to make our adjustments and I feel like our guys did a great job of making that adjustment and stay competitive."

Medfield's Joe Shebertes was on the mound and earned the win, allowing one earned run. The Warriors (7-1, 7-0) face two tough tests in the form of Norton and Hopkinton on Wednesday and Thursday if the weather holds out - matchups that Marenghi is excited for. 

"We have Norton, the defending state champs and Hopkinton who I'm sure ... it would make them nothing happier than to take it to us considering how we opened the season against them," Marenghi said. "I told my guys these are probably two of the better teams in the league and it's going to show what we are made of. I'm very excited to see how our team is going to respond against these two teams."

Medfield's game against Norton is in Norton on Wednesday at 3:45 p.m. and Thursday's game against Hopkinton is in Hopkinton at 3:45 p.m.

Millis falls to 3-6 overall, 2-6 in the Tri-Valley League.