PEABODY — It all happened so fast.
The No. 9 Bishop Fenwick baseball team appeared to be in control Sunday afternoon in its Division 3 Round of 32 matchup against visiting No. 24 Greater Lowell Tech.
Holding a 2-0 lead with two outs in the top of the fifth inning, all of the momentum belonged to the Crusaders.
Or so it seemed.
The Gryphons capitalized on a series of fielding miscues and misplayed balls — Fenwick committed four errors in all — to completely flip the script.
By the time the inning ended, Greater Lowell had scored three unearned runs and built a 3-2 lead.
After that, Gryphons starter Jayden Faria-Murchie slammed the door shut, retiring the final six Crusaders in order to send Greater Lowell to the Round of 16.
“I think once they took the lead, we felt the pressure,” Fenwick coach JP Reiling said. “We had a lot of weak hits and a lot of swings early in the count as well, so we kind of went away from our game on the offensive side. We’re a young team that’s faced a lot of adversity over their career, and we’re just going to look into the future. Our future is bright.”
Greater Lowell coach Dave MacLaughlan, who was inducted into the 2026 Massachusetts Baseball Coaches Association Hall of Fame in January, said the game came down to who made the fewest mistakes.
“The basic philosophy we always teach to our kids is to just make the basic plays,” he said. “We got good pitching today and timely hitting, and we made the basic plays. When you do that, you have at least a competitive game and you’re in the game. And Jayden, there’s a reason why we call him ‘The Big Rig.’ He pitched a great game for us today.”
Truth be told, this was a pitchers’ battle from start to finish. Faria-Murchie who allowed just three hits and Fenwick starter Henry VanFaasen (6 IP, 6 K, 2 BB) who allowed four. Andrew Kiricoples mopped up in the seventh, retiring the final three batters after a walk to the leadoff hitter to keep Fenwick in the game.
Fenwick scored its only runs in the bottom of the second to take a quick 2-0 lead. Senior captain Odin Garron (1-for-2, R) led off with a single and advanced to second on a wild pitch. Nick McFadden (1-for-3, R) followed with a single, with Garron holding at third. Mike Obremski (1-for-1, RBI) then singled home Garron, with McFadden advancing to third. McFadden later scored on another wild pitch.
After allowing a leadoff single to Nathan Norman in the fifth, VanFaasen buckled down and retired the next two batters, appearing poised to escape the inning unscathed. But a booted ground ball opened the door and allowed the Gryphons to keep the rally alive.
The damage could have been worse, but for a great play by Fenwick’s Andrew Kircoples. With two Gryphons in scoring position, he snagged a slow-rolling chopper at short and fired to first to end the inning.
Faria-Murchie dominated the rest of the way, retiring the Crusaders in order over the final five innings. He allowed just one baserunner – a leadoff walk to Garron in the fourth inning who was promptly erased on a bang-bang play by Norman at short. He snagged a sinking line drive off the bat of Obremski and smartly doubled up Garron at second.
Greater Lowell (15-5) advances to face the winner of Monday’s game between No. 8 Hanover and No. 40 Tri-County Regional Tech.
“We don’t know too much about those teams, but most of the games we lost have been close, and many of those teams made the tournament, so we have been very competitive all year,” MacLaughlan said. “Hopefully that will continue.”
Fenwick finished the season 16-6. While an early tournament exit was surely not what the Crusaders had in mind, Reiling sees many positive takeaways from the 2026 campaign despite losing seniors Nathaniel Pena, Jason LaRosa, Nick Walczewski, Garron and captain Tommy Ronninggen.
“We have eight juniors coming back and a handful of sophomores who played a lot of key positions for us, so we are definitely excited,” Reiling said. “Yes, it stinks losing our five seniors, but I think this group is our foundation for the program. After the suspension, we had a lot of things to build back, but this group came in on Day 1 and they were amazing, trying to change our culture and bring back some success that we had not seen in recent years.”
