THETFORD — When Philip Chaput took over the Thetford Academy baseball program in 2012, the Panthers, as Chaput understated, “had fallen on some hard times.”
Just two years prior to Chaput’s arrival, Thetford did not even have a varsity team. The road to on-field success has been slow but steady — the Panthers were just 4-13 in his fifth season in 2016 but broke through to the VPA Division III semifinals in 2019. And with an entirely new roster last year after COVID-19 wiped out the 2020 season, Thetford reached the D-III championship game.
Now, there’s only one hurdle left for Chaput to clear, and with eight returnees, the Panthers are putting themselves in position to finally reach the mountaintop this time.
“It was hard to get people to buy in,” Chaput said. “But we’ve done some really nice things here, trying to reach out to the youth organizations and get baseball back on people’s minds.”
Chaput teaches physical education at Thetford Elementary School, so he has a pre-existing relationship with several of the players in his program. This year’s group is an almost perfect balance among grade levels, with three seniors, two juniors, three sophomores and three freshmen. All but the freshmen were on last year’s team that earned the top seed in the playoffs and picked up one-run wins over Windsor and Hazen before falling, 4-1, to Peoples in the final at Burlington’s Centennial Field.
The Panthers have a deep pitching staff, with senior Ethan Marshia, junior Jacob Gilman and freshmen Zander Clark and Justin Robinson all capable of going deep into games. Senior catcher Ryan Malloy is responsible for handling all those arms.
“It’s nice to have a bunch of different pitchers, and we can really mix it up,” Malloy said. “We’ll start off with some of our quicker pitchers and move to a different speed throughout the game, and it’s worked out well for us.”
Thetford is stocked with offensive talent as well. Marshia, Malloy, Fahey and Gilman have all come up with big hits throughout the season, as have junior Nolan Pepe and senior Mack Briglin.
That depth has led the Panthers to a 9-3 record with one regular-season game to go, and none of the losses have come against Division III foes. Thetford suffered an 11-3 defeat against Blue Mountain, the top team in Division IV, on April 21 and was later blown out by Division II powerhouses Spaulding and Lyndon two days apart.
The Panthers’ first signature win came on April 26, when Thetford defeated White River Valley, 7-2, to snap the Wildcats’ 39-game winning streak. Fahey, in his first varsity start, tossed four scoreless innings, and the Panthers scored five runs in the second against WRV ace Dominic Craven.
Thetford picked up its best win of the year on Tuesday against first-place Hazen, a team that came in with a 12-1 record and was eager to avenge the Panthers’ win in the semifinals last season.
After Thetford jumped out to a three-run lead in the first, the Wildcats scored twice in the third and twice more in the fourth to pull ahead. But Fahey, who allowed those runs in his 3⅔-inning start, hit his first high school home run to tie the game in the sixth and snap a string of 15 straight Panthers batters to make outs.
The blast set the stage for Fahey’s older sister, sophomore Mason Fahey, in extra innings. The only girl on Thetford’s roster, Mason Fahey drew a bases-loaded walk with two outs in the eighth to force home the winning run.
“I’ve always been the only girl. It’s never really affected me much,” Fahey said. “You grow up playing on boys teams, and you get used to it. It’s never really crossed my mind to play softball. The last two years have been my favorite baseball teams that I’ve played on. Extra innings against the first-place team, that’s nice as we head into playoffs.”
Thetford closes the regular season on Thursday at U-32, which won the Division II title last year. The tough closing slate should have the Panthers more than ready to go once the postseason begins next week.
Chaput said his team is much more defensively sound this year compared to last — Thetford’s four errors against Hazen, he said, were an aberration. After the Panthers committed three errors in the decisive inning of last year’s championship game, shoring up that defense will be a must for them to close the deal this season.
“It’s a lot of the same players, and the freshmen who came up had either attended those games or been a part of the middle school program,” Chaput said. “They knew they were joining a quality team. We set short-term goals and we set long-term goals in how we’re going to go there.
“We always want to go for a state championship, (and) I think we have a good shot this year.”
Benjamin Rosenberg can be reached at brosenberg@vnews.com or 603-727-3302.