AUBURN — Cody West woke up Thursday morning unsure if his Hopkins Academy baseball team was even going to play a game.
Just a few hours later, the sophomore kicked off a raucous celebration after scoring the game-winning run to send the Golden Hawks into the state final.
After Wednesday’s MIAA Division 4 state semifinal against Tahanto, a game scheduled to be played at UMass’ Earl Lorden Field, was postponed due to weather and poor field conditions, there was much uncertainty surrounding when and where the two sides would be able to actually get on a field. The forecast for the rest of the week wasn’t promising, leaving Hopkins Academy athletic director Erik Sudnick scrambling.
Sudnick tried to get a plan in place Wednesday night. He inquired with Springfield College about using their turf baseball field and hoped that Hopkins’ home field in Hadley would be playable come the next morning. The team did have home field advantage as the side with the better winning percentage.
But as plans never materialized, Hopkins players and coaches went to sleep Wednesday night unsure what the next day would bring.
“My assistant coach, Paul Marcinek, texted me at 10 o’clock at night (Wednesday) asking ‘What’s going on tomorrow?’” Hopkins coach Dan Vreeland said. “I didn’t know. My AD was talking to this place and that place, trying to find a venue, but when I went to bed, my last recollection was that we thought we were going to play Friday morning.”
Plans came together in the early hours of Thursday morning. Sudnick was on the horn by 6 a.m., working in tandem with Tahanto AD Matt Porcaro, and with more rain in the forecast, they eventually secured the turf field at Auburn High School for a 1 p.m. first pitch.
“I probably made like 100 phone calls between 6 a.m. and 11, trying to set this all up,” Sudnick said. “And same for Matt, just doing whatever we could to give the kids the opportunity to get this game in.”
Vreeland’s phone buzzed at 6:30 a.m. It was Sudnick, asking how quickly the Hawks could assemble and be on a bus to Auburn.
“Well I have a 1-year-old and a 2-year-old at home so I’m not sleeping at 6:30 in the morning, but the players are all sleeping,” Vreeland said with a laugh.
West said he and his teammates went to bed Wednesday night ready for anything. He was up Thursday expecting there might be a game to play, but didn’t receive confirmation until around 8 a.m. when captain Jack Feltovic informed them all that the bus was leaving Hadley at 10:30.
And, oh yeah, the game was going to be played in central Mass.
“We weren’t really happy about it, because we put in a lot of work this year to get the chance to play at home, but our mindset was to come in and do what we do so that we could get the chance to come back and play again (in the state final),” West said. “It’s a quick turnaround but if you want to be a winning team, that’s what’s going to happen. Sometimes games are going to pop up like that, you have to be ready for anything this time of year.”
As Hopkins players arrived at the school for the bus to Auburn, Vreeland said he wasn’t quite sure what to expect.
“It was a crazy morning… kids were arriving to the school, all kinds of mixed emotions,” he said. “Some were geared up to go and play, some were mad that we didn’t get to play a home game. The collective message was ‘we’re going to play baseball on a field that is the exact same field the other team is going to play on. We’re going to get a chance to play today and show we’re the better team.’”
Vreeland said his team almost always keeps things light. He admitted that while there was a nervous feeling as they waited for the bus to depart, once everyone was aboard, that nervousness dissipated.
“Once we got on the bus, it very much felt like we were going to a regular away game,” he said. “They had the boombox going in the back, they were all singing and dancing. So I think for me, once we got on the bus I felt a lot better.”
And while his day began with much uncertainty, West was all smiles just a few short hours later when he touched home in the bottom of the seventh inning to keep Hopkins’ dream season rolling with a 4-3 victory. He scored from second base thanks to an RBI single up the middle from Patrick Fitzgibbons.
Next up is a shot to win the program’s first state championship since 1985. That game will be played Saturday, against Abington, hopefully back at home on the familiar terrain at Hopkins Academy. After overcoming Thursday’s uncertainty, Saturday’s preparation should be a piece of cake.
“We’ve gotten this far together as a team,” West said. “We’re ready for anything at this point.”