Woodsville defeated Concord Christian Academy (CCA) 5-3 in Tuesday’s division IV baseball quarterfinal, ending the Kingsmen’s playoff journey. No. 6 Woodsville’s (14-5) victory came against No. 7 Concord Christian (13-6), who were making their first final four appearance in nine years.

CCA initially took a 1-0 lead in the first inning when Connor Faherty singled, bringing home TJ Charbono. However, Woodsville responded with three runs in the bottom of the first to take a 3-1 lead.

In the second inning, Jackson Barton’s RBI scored Ethan Lemay, narrowing the gap to 3-2. Woodsville then extended their lead to 5-2 in the third with back-to-back doubles from Jacob Putnam and landon kingsbury. Andrew Doyle scored on a ground out by Grady St. Jean for CCA, making it 5-3, but neither team scored for the remainder of the game.

First-year head coach Josh McAllister expressed pride in his team’s progress.”Super proud of this team. We came a long way,” McAllister said.”I saw a lot of improvement in all the players.”

after being eliminated in the preliminary round last year, Concord Christian exceeded expectations this season, finishing with an 11-5 regular season record, defeating Littleton in the prelims, and upsetting Mascenic in the quarterfinals.

“the last two weeks have been so much fun,” McAllister said. “We peaked at the perfect time. We’ve been playing our best baseball, it’s what led us to the semis.”

Teamwork and Coaching

McAllister acknowledged the contributions of his coaching staff, including assistant Mike Syvertson, the program’s founder and former head coach, along with assistants Tom Charbono and Josh Funk.

“The last two weeks have been so much fun,” McAllister said. “We peaked at the perfect time. We’ve been playing our best baseball…”

looking Ahead

The team will miss TJ Charbono, but mcallister is optimistic about the future. He noted the significant improvement of players, some of whom have limited baseball experience. “We’ve got some kids who have played a lot of baseball,but others who have only played a year or two of baseball and played in every game for us,” McAllister stated. “The improvement I saw was impressive.”

McAllister concluded, “Putting (the season) in viewpoint, we accomplished more than we set out to do.”