Rabuse Leads Wahconah Back to Western Mass Title Game
PITTSFIELD, Mass. – With one swing of the bat, James Rabuse Wednesday gave the Wahconah baseball team the lead.
With 3 and two-third dominant innings on the mound, he made sure that lead stayed intact.
Rabuse’ towering two-run home run in the top of the third broke a 2-2 tie and sent Wahconah on to a 10-2 win over Taconic in the semi-finals of the Western Massachusetts Class B Tournament.
He then moved from right field to the pitchers mound with one out in the bottom of the fourth and proceeded to strike out eight of the 11 hitters he faced to hold the Thunder at bay.
Rabuse relieved starter Luke Ferguson, who had a couple of strikeouts of his own and left five runners on base over the first three innings.
But Taconic’s Tyler Arseneau and Ethan O’Donnell reached Ferguson for back-to-back singles in the bottom of the fourth, and with the heart of the Thunder’s lineup coming up, Wahconah coach Collin Parrott opted to make the switch in the 6-2 game.
“I have all the faith in the world in Ferg,” Parrott said. “He was always the option. We always have James as a guy we can use at any point. But I don’t really know if the plan was to go to him that early or he just said, ‘Give me the ball. I’m gonna shut them down.’ And I said, ‘Go for it, kid.’ “
Shut them down he did, getting a called third strike for the second out of the fourth and a fly ball in fair territory to end the threat. Rabuse then delivered three straight 1-2-3 innings, striking out the side in order in the sixth.
Taconic started the day strong.
After a 1-2-3 inning from starting pitcher Ethan O’Donnell, he drew a walk to start the bottom of the first. After a stolen base and an error, he scored on an infield single from brother Gavin O’Donnell to make it 1-0, Thunder.
Wahconah took the lead in the top of the second thanks to a sacrifice fly from Aiden Arseneau and an RBI single from Daniel Hoffmann.
But Taconic scratched out a run in the bottom of the frame to tie it. Kingston DeJesus hit a one-out infield single and eventually scored from third on a dropped third strike that drew a throw to first base.
In the top of the third, Wahconah’s Ferguson worked a walk, and, with two out, Rabuse crushed the ball over the fence to make it 4-2. Wahconah scored two more runs before Taconic could get that final out. Jack Hicks (3-for-4) tripled to left to drive in a run and scored on Aiden Arsenau’s single.
After generating a single run in the sixth, Wahconah tacked on three runs in the seventh to put the game away and start thinking about Saturday’s all-Berkshire County Class B final against Pittsfield, which advanced with a 5-0 win over Frontier on Wednesday.
Back on April 28, the Generals earned an 8-2 win in Dalton.
“Another great team,” Parrott said of Pittsfield, which beat Wahconah in the 2024 Western Mass Final and Taconic in last year’s regional title game. “They’re back-to-back champs for a reason. I’ve got a lot of respect for those guys and their coach, and I’m excited to go see what we can do.”