Souhegan 4, John Stark 3
- Updated: June 15, 2025
Although the Souhegan High School baseball team didn’t navigate its 2025 schedule unbeaten, the Sabers didn’t lose to a Division II opponent.
Top-seeded Souhegan puctuated a 20-1 season by beating second-seeded John Stark 4-3 Saturday in the Division III championship game. Souhegan’s lone loss came against Dover, a Division I opponent.
Souhegan’s Brayden Hickman pitched 6.2 innings. Hickman was replaced by Ethan Gaudet when he reached his pitch limit (120) with two outs in the seventh inning.
Souhegan lost to Bow in last year’s Division II championship game.
“The standard has been set by these seniors,” Souhegan coach Chris Metz said. “The standard is to be here every year. … We play to win the state championship every year.”
John Stark’s Chase Philibotte, the Division II Player of the Year, tossed all six innings and struck out nine, but the Generals committed an error in each of the first two innings, which is when Souhegan did all of its scoring. Philibotte struck walked three and allowed five hits.
“They’re a type of team that you can’t make mistakes against. Unfortunately, this was one of our poorer defensive games that we’ve had in quite a while,” John Stark coach Dennis Pelletier said. “I think the bright lights of being in a championship game affected both teams.
“You could see in our defense today, we left a couple double plays on the board, we had a couple big plays that we could’ve made that just weren’t made. Souhegan made them. They’re such a good team, you can’t afford to make (those mistakes). … Despite all of that, it was a one-run ball game and we had the tying run (in scoring position) a couple of times. It was there.”
The Generals (17-3) took a 2-0 lead in the first inning on an RBI single by Aidan Williams that scored Joey Dykstra, and a fielder’s choice that allowed Aidan Harris to score.
Souhegan made it 2-1 when Matt Silk scored on a throwing error in the bottom of the first, and then took a 3-2 lead on Drew Reagan’s two-run single in the second. Reagan scored Souhegan’s fourth run on single by Silk later in the inning.
Williams singled home Dykstra in the bottom of the fifth to cut the Souhegan’s lead to 4-3, but the Generals stranded two runners in the sixth and went down in order in the seventh.
Hickman allowed five hits, walked four and struck out seven before Gaudet got Williams to fly out to left field for the game’s final out.
“There’s no better way to go out than on a win, especially in the championship,” Hickman said. “I just proud to be able to represent Souhegan’s jersey.”
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