Andre Chiefs

Medford, MA- And now they can rest. At least for a few days. 

After a furious stretch, with twenty four games on the docket in the last twenty eight days, the Chiefs earned themselves a second place regular season finish with a sweep of a two site, three team doubleheader on Sunday.  With the wins, the club finishes at 16-11-3 and gets a first round playoff bye and a ticket into the ICL semi-finals. 

GAME ONE- Chiefs 3, Blue Sox 0
Rookie Rob Machado served up the best performance of his young ICL career in the opener, coming within one out of throwing a no-hitter, in a 3-0 shutout of the Lexington Blue Sox at Tufts University on Sunday afternoon. 

Machado lost his no-hit bid with two outs in the seventh inning when Blue Sox rookie pinch-hitter Chris Shaw lined a clean opposite field single to left. 

The game was scoreless through the first 2 ½ innings until the Chiefs picked up all of their runs in the bottom of the third against Drew Brzozowski. Hal Landers got things going when he led off with a double to right-center. Leadoff man Brendan Pyburn followed and moved Landers to third with a perfect sacrifice bunt. Mike Bailargeon then stepped up a drilled a double to left scoring Landers as the Chiefs took a 1-0 lead. Jeff Bercume then grounded out to second base moving Bailargeon to third and Peter Copa delivered him a pitch later with a single to left making it 2-0. Mike Andre then doubled to left scoring Copa giving the Chiefs a 3-0 lead. 

Machado took care of the rest. The right-hander from UMass-Amherst, who was previously a standout at Malden Catholic, was perfect through the ten batters of the game before surrendering a one out walk to Ross Curley in the fourth. He had 1-2-3 innings in the first, second, third, fifth and sixth.  

In the seventh, Machado got the first out by striking out Boston College’s Kyle Prohovich looking. Clean-up hitter Matt McEvoy followed and bounced back to Machado for out number two. Shaw pinch hit for Ben Hewett and drilled the first pitch he saw to left to break up the no hit bid. Machado gained the shutout when he got Tom Haugh to hit a chopper back to him to end the game. 

Machado threw just 81 pitches, struck out three, walked two, and raised his season mark to 2-3.