Clippers' streak continues to grow

The record for the nation's longest winning streak in high school baseball is 75, according to the National Federation of State High School Associations.

That was set by Homer (Mich.) High School in 2005, a streak that ended in Michigan's Division III championship game that year.

The Portsmouth High School baseball team still has a way to go to reach that point - the Clippers won their 57th in a row on Monday. That doesn't even put the Clippers in the top 10 for longest win-streaks in the nation; that won't happen unless Portsmouth wins its final two regular season games (against Kennett and Milford) and then reaches the championship game of the Class I tournament.

Getting back to that championship game for a third straight year is the only thing that Portsmouth and coach Tim Hopley are thinking about.

"It’s not 56 and it’s not 58," Hopley said Monday after the Clippers beat Souhegan 4-0. "You guys can figure it from there. The (number) we use, it’s 14."

As in the number of games in a row Portsmouth (14-0) has won this season.

"This is this year," Hopley said. "There’s only three guys around from when this started. The fact that they’ve been able to keep plugging away, carrying the extra burden of the bull’s eye, it’s a credit to those guys."

Those three players - seniors Nate Jones, Mike Montville and Jack Gonsalves - are three very good players. But outside of those three, the Clippers' lineup against Souhegan contained four sophomores, two juniors and one other senior.

"I’m not sure they are a senior team," Souhegan coach Bill Dod said. "They’ve got three really good seniors. They’ve got some good underclassmen. They have a great group of younger kids who aren’t going to fall to the wayside. They’re loaded. They’ve got all kinds of kids waiting in the wings."

Against the Sabers, Portsmouth junior Quinn McCann had two hits, a RBI and a run scored, and sophomore catcher Conor Trefethen had a RBI single. Of the Clippers' six hits in the game, five came from underclassmen.

Portsmouth's last loss came against Hollis/Brookline in the quarterfinals of the 2007 Class I tournament. Since then, the Clippers have won two Class I titles of their own.

And if those underclassmen continue to develop, 75 might not be so far off.