Christopher Tremblay

The Norwood American Legion Post 70 baseball team opened up the summer season with an impressive 11-3 record, but due to rain, the squad was forced to play four games over the final five days of the regular season. After edging North Attleboro 5-4, Norwood found themselves sitting in first place in District 6 and needing only one win to secure a tournament spot.

Unfortunately, that’s when Post 70’s season began taking on water. Over the next three games, Norwood found themselves falling in all three contests by a combined score of 30-5. Needham shut them out 10-0, Mansfield defeated them 13-5, and Foxboro, a team that Norwood should have defiantly beaten, surprised them with a 7-0 win. 

“It was the end of the season and the kids knew that originally we only had two games during the week so a lot of them had vacation plans before the playoffs were to start,” Norwood Coach Paul Samargedlis said. “Our team was made up of 17 kids, with two 15-years olds to start building for the future and with five starters out it hurt us.”

Norwood finished the regular season with a record of 11-6 and was not expecting to make the post-season as they hadn’t secured that final win, but with the new rules and tie breakers, both Needham and Norwood were awarded berths in the tournament. 

At this point, Samargedlis thought that the baseball gods were looking down upon his team after the season’s start and the tough luck they encountered down the stretch. Just as fast as the sun came a shining, clouds began to roll in. Starters Brendan Cengic and Elliot Harris went down with injuries and Norwood fell to Quincy 9-6 in the first game after holding an early lead and then found themselves getting thrown out at the plate to end the game with the score favoring Fall River, 7-6. Fall River would go on to become the Champions.

After beginning the season with a promising 11-3 record, Norwood lost its last five games to end the year at 11-8.

“These kids were committed to the game; legion ball is not like it used to be in the past, but these kids gave it everything they had,” the Norwood skipper said. “We were a dominate team this year, but getting on that losing streak hurt. When you get on a slide like that you need to get that one win to put you back on your path, but it just never came.”

Samargedlis went on to say that no team is deep enough to overcome what Norwood had to endure this season and he firmly believes that if Post 70 were healthy they would have beaten Fall River and made a run through the post-season.

“We just ran out of pitching,” Samargedlis said. “We were down 7-4, cut it to 7-6 before getting thrown out at the plate to end the game. It was the perfect storm; if we were healthy, we are definitely up there as one of the best legion teams in the state.”

Having begun his coaching career with Norwood in 2004, the squad under his guidance had made the tournament 21 of the 22 years, having only missed qualifying in 2014. Outside that year, the coach noted that his teams never went into a game saying ‘we can’t win this’ even with injuries they’d continue to battle.

“We put a stamp on this program, the kids are well instructed and I am extremely proud to be a part of it,” Samargedlis said. “This year’s players all have a bright future ahead of them.”

Norwood will be only losing one athlete, while two other college pitchers can return if they so want to do so. Samargedlis has recorded a .580 winning percentage over his 22 years at the helm and amassed 289 wins in the process, only 11 wins away from the prestigious 300 club. Only a handful of coaches in the state have eclipsed this plateau with the same legion team.

“I am proud of the year that we had this year,” Samargedlis said. “The success of this program overall, the team represented the town of Norwood well.”