Portsmouth continues improbable run
- Updated: June 8, 2026
EXETER – If the Portsmouth High School baseball team has been feeling any added pressure lately it certainly hasn’t shown. Portsmouth’s last three games have all been the win-or-turn-in-your-uniform variety, and the Clippers prevailed in all three.
Portsmouth earned the 15th and final seed for the Division I tournament by beating Salem in its final regular season game, eliminated second-seeded Pinkerton in the preliminary round and advanced to Wednesday’s Division I semifinals by beating seventh-seeded Exeter 6-5 in Saturday’s quarterfinals.
“We’re loose,” Portsmouth first baseman Zavier Lampert said following Saturday’s win. “No one was expecting us to do this, but we know what team we are. We believe in ourselves and we just keep executing and winning games – that’s all that matters. It’s a great, great feeling.”
Hugh Herter broke a 5-5 tie by scoring from third when Jake Poulin drew a bases-loaded walk in the sixth inning Saturday. Cam Stacy pitched the final 2.1 innings and didn’t allow a hit or a run.
Stacy was one of four freshmen in Portsmouth’s starting lineup Saturday. The team’s tournament roster also includes two sophomores.
“I’ve experienced a lot with this program, but to have this composition of players – four freshmen and two sophomores playing almost every day – there’s nothing during my time here that compares to that,” Portsmouth coach Tim Hopley said. “It’s all house money when you’re a 15 seed. It’s like, here’s some cash. See how long you can make it last.
“We’re not pulling chips back now. We’re gonna let it ride. We’ll take this as long as we can take it.”
Portsmouth (9-12) will face sixth-seeded Londonderry (16-6) in Wednesday’s first semifinal at Nashua’s Holman Stadium (4 p.m.). Top-seeded Trinity (19-1) will meet 13th-seeded Timberlane (11-11), another tournament Cinderella, in the second semifinal at Holman.
Seventh-seeded Exeter (13-8), last year’s Division I champion, took a 3-2 lead on Brennan Schimoler’s three-run home run in the third, but Portsmouth regained the lead by scoring three times in the fourth. The key hit was Jackson Hooper’s two-out single with the bases loaded that drove in two runners and put the Clippers up 5-3.
Exeter tied the game in the fifth. Ben Wissler scored on Will Tobin’s RBI single, and Ethan Battles scored on an infield error.
Portsmouth’s run in the sixth was one of four unearned runs Exeter allowed. The Blue Hawks committed five errors in the loss.
“They’re not playing like a 15 seed, that’s for sure,” Exeter coach Bruce Joyce said. “Obviously you have to play better to advance. As poorly as we played in the field we did have our chances, but I really can’t say enough about Portsmouth and how they battled and hung in there and played hard right to the end. They deserved it.”
Adding to Portsmouth’s feel-good story is the fact that the Clippers lost eight of their first nine games this season.
“We cleaned up a lot of physical errors and mental errors,” Lampert said. “We’re rolling now and we feel good.”
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