Windham Middle School baseball savors amazing season

By Matt Pascarella

Windham Middle School’s baseball team had an incredible season, in which they only lost one game. Windham played their final game of the season at Gorham on Thursday, June 5. Windham held a lead for the first half of the game, but Gorham pulled ahead in the end and Windham narrowly lost 8-6 to the Rams. More importantly, this is a great group of young men who skillfully played the game and had a very strong season.

Windham eighth grader Ryan Manning bats against
Gorham during a middle school baseball game on
Thursday, June 5. PHOTO BY MATT PASCARELLA

“It's a team effort, and we would not have been 6-1-1 without the contributions from everyone,” said WMS baseball coach Charlie Reiniger. “We’re aggressive on the bases, everybody can hit, but everybody contributed. Our pitching was really good ... our baserunning was huge – I mean everything was absolutely outstanding; these guys were dominant all year. These guys worked so hard at practice every day, this was unbelievable; I’m so happy I took this job, a great decision for me to come to Windham for sure. I loved coaching these guys this year.”

Reiniger, a 2024 Cheverus High School graduate, was new to Windham baseball this season. He said to the parents of the players that he may have learned more from his players than they learned from him. He said that he learned it takes a community, a family, to build success. He wants to thank his assistant coaches Bryan Harvie and Ralph Gallagher for their hard work this season. He’d also like to thank the parents; whether the game was home or away the Windham section was always filled with supporters, cheering on their team.

Windham started their season with an 8-4 win against Scarborough, tied Southern Maine Catholic 6-6, got by Bonny Eagle 12-9 – in which all 12 runs were scored in the first inning. Windham creamed Lincoln 20-4 and Moore 14-2. They sent Lewiston packing 9-3 and knocked down South Portland, 10-4. Collectively, the team had 70 hits and scored 85 runs.

“I think we played as a team, we never got down on each other,” said Windham eighth grader Brady Legere. “During the season, we hit the ball well, I think that was a big factor we were always putting up runs early in the game. In the future (we can remember) that we lost one game in our whole entire eighth grade season and going up to high school, that’s a big thing to have.”

Windham eighth grader Riley Gallagher said they stayed together, even if they were down. They played good defense too, if they needed stops; they hit the ball, got runs as they needed them. Gallagher said they will be able to keep this team together as they go into high school and it feels good knowing that they’ll have a majority of this team for four more years.

As Reiniger looks ahead to next season, he has a great group of seventh graders who are talented and will spend their time growing and getting better at the game during the off season. He will miss his eighth graders but wishes them nothing but success in the future. Reiniger said that Windham varsity baseball coach Chris Doughty has a solid group of players who can contribute greatly next year. <