Post 14’s Late Rally Not Enough to Beat Weymouth

July 18, 2025
• With the loss, Post 14 falls to 11-6 on the season. 

Needham Post 14 fell to Weymouth 6-5 in extra innings on Wednesday, July 16, despite staging an impressive comeback in the seventh to tie the game. 

Down by five after four innings, Post 14 rallied late, tying the game at 5-5 in the seventh to force extra innings. 

Their luck would run out there, as Weymouth scored and reestablished their lead in the top of the eighth, while Needham could not push across a run in the bottom half of the inning.

Weymouth Post 79 jumped out to a quick lead in the first inning, scoring their first run on a pickoff attempt by Needham pitcher Liam Fitzmaurice that got by first baseman George Mutrie. Dan Dreyfus followed that up with a double to center field to drive in another run before Post 14 closed out the inning. 

In the third, Weymouth added two more runs, the first on a single from Ryan Gildea and the other on a single from JJ Mannion. The second run prompted Needham to make a pitching change, ending Fitzmaurice’s night on the mound after 2.1 innings. He gave up four runs on six hits, walked two and struck out none.

Garrett Falahee came on in relief and recorded two quick strikeouts with the bases loaded, limiting the damage done by Post 79. He gave up one run in the fourth on an RBI single from Devin Kelsch, but he added two more strikeouts as Needham went down 5-0. 

Needham struggled offensively in the beginning of the game, recording their first hit off Brody Stone in the fourth inning when Connor Falahee singled. But they could not bring him home and remained down by five until the bottom of the sixth inning.

That’s where the momentum shifted for Post 14. Brendan McHugh led off with a single, followed by another single from Falahee and a walk from Adam Hess to load the bases. Colin O’Donnell was then hit by a pitch from Stone, bringing in Post 14’s first run of the game. Joey Saratella added another run in the inning with a sacrifice fly, and Needham went into the seventh trailing 5-2.

Weymouth brought in Owen Shom to replace Stone in the seventh. After striking out Eli Warn, Shom gave up a single to Kyle Nahabedian. He struck out McHugh after that, but Post 14 battled with two outs, loading the bases for O’Donnell. O’Donnell then hit a two-run single to left field to make it a one-run game. With the bases loaded again, Joey Saratella drew a walk to tie the game, which he celebrated with a bat flip. 

In the eighth, Weymouth got a runner on base, and Jack Reyes hit a sacrifice fly to left field to put Post 79 back on top, 6-5. Needham could not answer in the bottom of the eighth, dropping their first game in over a week. 

With the loss and other District 6 results, Post 14 fell from second place in the standings to seventh. 

Sports anchor Joe McGinty has the highlights from this game below:

The highlights above ran as part of the Needham Channel News, a weekly newscast airing on The Needham Channel every Thursday at 7:30pm. The Needham Channel News can be found on the Community Channel: Comcast 9, Astound 15 and Verizon 29. Most Thursdays it also can be viewed on our HD Channel on Verizon 2129, Astound 613 and streaming on this site.