WORCESTER — Polar Park holds approximately 9,500 people, but Saturday afternoon for the Division 3 marbles, two stars were shining brightest.
You could say the talk of social media this week has been about the pitchers, Oakmont Regionals’s Caleb Allen and Josh Doney of St. Mary’s.
Seeing how the two programs combined for six postseason shutouts heading into Saturday, runs would be hard to come by. But after seven innings at the home of the Worcester Red Sox, top-seeded Oakmont outlasted No. 2 St. Mary’s, 3-1, to capture back-to-back state titles.
“To do it back-to-back and to do it with this group of kids, to do it for our fans, and for our school, you can’t draw it up,” said Oakmont coach Tim Caouette. “It’s surreal. That’s the best word I can use.”
On the other side, St. Mary’s coach Derek Dana said he was disappointed with the outcome, but not his players.
“I’m very proud of them. Two in-season tournaments – we won both of those – and 20 wins,” he said. “The kids came to work every single day.”
Despite the 20 wins, Dana added he wished it was 21.
“They’re (Oakmont Spartans) here for a reason, too,” he said. “They’ve been there before and are a good team.”
Allen (Deerfield Academy ’25) did his thing, punching out 10 batters and allowing just three hits.
“Honestly, baseball is fun and I love having fun out there,” he said. “It’s great to see how many fans we have showing up. It was the same thing last year, and it’s just really great to see.”
Speaking of the fans, Caouette thought Saturday “felt like a home game.”
“This place feels like home, and we talked about that,” he said. “We made things happen when we needed to, and we came out on top.”
But they weren’t always on top. St. Mary’s struck first in the opening inning when Doney drove in Michael DeMaino from second base.
“To be honest, that happens to me a lot. For some reason, my first innings are awful,” Allen said. “Second inning, I settled in fine.”
Beyond the RBI, do-it-all Doney was everywhere. He struck out seven from the mound and connected on two hits offensively.
Both coaches took note.
“He knocked one in and had a huge triple (in the third inning),” Dana said. “I thought Josh played very well today.”
“He was phenomenal,” Caouette said. “Offensively, defensively, he kept us off-balanced. We planned for it, and he was still beating us.”
St. Mary’s retained its lead for four innings, but Oakmont finally got through to Doney, plating one in the fourth and two more in the fifth. Allen ripped the RBI equalizer, while Jake O’Day and J.J. Walker tapped home shortly afterward.
Back to that “home” crowd – you could say it was losing its mind. As for Allen, he said the run support “definitely made it a lot easier.”
“It’s a lot less stressful on the mound when you have a couple runs,” he said. “It was great to see.”
From there, Allen made quick work of St. Mary’s in the sixth and seventh innings to seal it. The right-hander retired Maxwell Parent, Chris Marks, and Isaiah Weston in 1-2-3 fashion to win it.
“He’s immense,” Caouette said. “One of our goals we talked about [was that] we wanted to get back here. … “That was a storybook ending and you couldn’t have drawn it up any better.”
St. Mary’s chances came early, but it left two men on base in the first, followed by another in the third.
“I thought we had some opportunities in the first inning,” Dana said. “He’s (Allen) a competitor and we had him on his heels… but we didn’t battle hard enough.”
Dana added how impressed he was with Jared Paone at third base, as well as fellow infielder DeMaino.
“I thought everyone played well behind Josh,” he said.
It was St. Mary’s first loss in a state championship game since 1979 (9-2 against Matignon). The program stands at 6-2 all-time in title games.
