St. Malachy's provincial baseball championship honours longtime coach

Scott Shepard, whose team went 10-0 to win the New Brunswick Interscholastic Athletic Association (NBIAA) boys’ baseball title this fall, says that accomplishment honours the memory of  New Brunswick Baseball Hall of Fame pitcher and longtime St. Mac’s coach and teacher Tom King, who died in March.

King spearheaded a dominant Saints baseball program in the 1990s and early 2000s, winning four provincial titles between 1992 and 2002.

The team did not won another NBIAA championship until this year when they defeated the Miramichi Valley Paulamoo 14-4 in the provincial final in Saint John.

“To be able to go out with this team and secure that championship, kind of bring it back home to St. Malachy’s, and honouring that memory was super important to all of us,” Shepard said.

St. Mac’s sailed through the regular season and zone qualifier, never trailing in a single game. However, when the Saints reached the regionals, the intensity skyrocketed.

In a win-or-go-home opening game, they faced off against a familiar foe, the defending champion Leo Hayes Lions, who had defeated St. Macs in the 2023 provincial final.

Going into the fifth inning, the Saints were down 6-2 before rallying for an 8-7 win.

“That comeback, and that belief, the ability to kind of stand up, it’s what kind of led to the further success,” Shepard said. “It sparked (and) ignited the rest of the playoff run.”

In the provincial semifinals, the Saints won a 13-12 shootout against Bernice MacNaughton, sending them to the final to play Miramichi Valley.
 

This season marks the end of a high school baseball career for pitcher and infielder Mattias Cobham. The 17-year-old aspires to play college baseball in the United States in the fall. But for now, he’s content to close this chapter at St. Malachy’s as a champion.

“I wasn’t aware of how long it’s been till after the fact,” said Cobham, adding that redemption was on the minds of all the returning Saints during the cold regional matchup against Leo Hayes.

Shepard said strong pitching was at the core of the championship Saints, fitting since King, who helped the 1981 Marysville Royals and the 1983 Saint John Dodgers capture national senior baseball championships, is widely regarded as among the best to take the mound in New Brunswick.

“I felt that one of the stronger points for our team that allowed for high-level success was having four good players that could pitch for us,” said Shepard.