NHTI has expanded its Community Classic initiative into the spring and on Wednesday invited Pembroke and Merrimack Valley to face off on its fields for their baseball and softball season openers.

It’s all part of new athletic director Annie Mattarazzo’s vision to create stronger bonds with local schools to show the pathways available for students after graduation. Plus, the athletic facilities at NHTI were perfect for teams that have struggled to get outdoors to practice due to recent rain and snow.

MV and Pembroke split the set, with the Spartans staying strong to win it late in baseball and the Pride showing off their offense in a dominant softball win.

Baseball: Pembroke 6, MV 3: The Spartans took an early 1-0 lead after a few errors and wild pitches allowed leadoff hitter junior Zachary Bemis to round the bases. Pembroke stayed steady on offense despite striking out consistently by MV junior pitcher Jonas Weed.

In the top of the fifth, Pembroke scored its third run through smart baserunning and seemed to have the game under control. Owen Stewart, the Spartans’ senior pitcher, had kept his shutout alive through four frames, but the Pride put tons of balls in play and finally got their break in the bottom of the fifth.

“I preach to them, it’s a game of mistakes, and who makes the least is going to win,” Spartans head coach Joshua Coughlin said. “Today they probably made a couple more that we were able to capitalize on.”

Senior Reece Claremont started the inning with a walk and was pushed home after two consecutive hard-hit singles into right field by juniors Jacob Baggett and Jonas Weed. Weed, after his two-RBI single, was pushed home by a walk and sophomore Matthew Herrmann’s single.

With the game tied going into the seventh, Pembroke needed to get on base. Owen Stewart started with a single, and slowly the Spartans loaded the bases by stealing and capitalizing on errors, which led to three runs on small mistakes by the Pride.

Pride coach Sean Wheeler said that his focus moving forward is going to be on baserunning and ensuring that his players don’t get picked off as much as they did in the early part of the game. Defensively, there’s work to be done, but Wheeler thinks they can only get better from here.

“That’s the one that stuck with me, the bunt play. We get an out there, it’s 4-3, we’re gonna be fine,” he said. “But it turned into a big inning. Those are things we got to minimize, realize the mistakes, and again we’ll learn from it and get better.”

Softball: MV 16, Pembroke 3: Senior pitcher Kayla Smith opened the game up from the start by smashing a home run deep into left field. The Pride would score two more in the first and swung their bats well to keep rolling.

Senior Caydence Allberg finished her day with five RBI and went 4-for-4 to lead the Pride’s offense. Freshmen Mady Boelzner and Ryleigh Perry also delivered two RBIs each to back her up.

Coach Kevin O’Brien said that he’s an aggressive coach and that he teaches the batters not to sit back during games, and it clearly struck a chord with this group early. His team has struggled to get out on the field this season, so he was happy that his team was able to win the way it did.

Defensively, the Pride stayed consistent but did allow three runs as Pembroke kept swinging to get back in the game, but the top of the lineup struggled to get going and could not find a way to string hits together.

Coach Eric Ives has his work cut out for him with the Spartans. Freshman pitcher Abigail Doyle got the start due to an injury to the team’s starter, but Ives said she did well to throw many strikes and not be shaken too much by the early scoring. His team is still very young, and he’s confident that the girls can and will learn from this first game.

“(A score of) 16-3 sucks, but you didn’t get shut out, you continued to fight,” he said “It’s just really to point out all the good things they did. They’ll focus on the mistakes here and there, the little things. You just got to be resilient.”

Alexander Rapp can be reached at arapp@cmonitor.com.