There’s drama and then there’s what the Beverly Recs pulled off in this year’s best-of-seven North Shore Baseball League championship series.
In Friday night’s do-or-die Game 7, Beverly’s Trevor Kamuda connected for a go-ahead 2-run homer in the seventh inning and Mike Davis closed out the bottom half to give the Recs a thrilling 5-4 win over the Northeast Tide at Leary Field in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.
The 2025 NSBL champs entered the playoffs as the No. 5 seed and scored the winning run late in all four of their championship series wins, doing so in the ninth inning of Game 1, the sixth of Game 2 and the seventh of Games 4 and 7.
In the middle of each of those late wins was Davis, the former Salem State University star. He knocked in the winning run in Games 1 and 4 and pitched the final three innings of the clincher.
“When Mike smells blood, you’re done,” said Recs manager Matt Mello, who runs the club along with Chris Cocci with a ton of help from Kevin Murray.
The NSBL traces its history back to the 1800’s and this was the third championship for the Recs, who broke through in 2016. Beverly also hoisted the trophy in 2022 and the 2025 championship team was almost an entirely new group of players.
“This truly came out of no where,” said Mello. “We were hanging around .500 around Derek Lyons Day and then the intensity really turned up for us. We ended up with the perfect mix of young guys and veterans.”
Two newcomers made monster impacts for Beverly in Danvers native Danny Flynn and Endicott College’s Kamuda. Flynn just graduated from Worcester Academy and will be playing at Northeastern next year while Kamuda could be poised for a major breakout with the Gulls. Both brought power bats to the lineup and also played phenomenal defense.
“Our outfield was a no fly zone with those two guys and that was honestly one of the big reasons that we won,” said Mello. “That and our pitchers were dealing and we got some really timely hitting.”
Veteran pitcher Alex Teal was second among Beverly hurlers in playoff innings and posted a 2.88 earned run average in eight postseason appearances. After the Recs lost a two game series lead over eventual champion Peabody last summer, Teal was among those most determined to go the distance in 2025.
“He walked off Twi last year and vowed to come back with his best stuff,” said Mello. “Alex is a first ballot Hall of Famer.”
Former Masconomet standout Jacob Shirley gave the Recs an incredible frontline starting pitcher. Ex-St. John’s Prep submariner Conner Remley was an incredible arm out of the bullpen while Salem’s Jake Miano, Peabody’s Justin Powers and Casey Watson also helped out in major ways.
Offensively, Clarkson University’s Kyle Ventola and Northern Essex slugger Matt Barbuto were huge alongside the mainstays like Flynn, Kamuda and Davis. Murry brought in a lot of those guys, did a great job managing games and also playing catcher when needed, and was helped out by Beverly’s Nick McIntyre, who also played for the Recs and is a Salem State assistant coach.
Northeast, which was aiming for its first ever NSBL title, rallied from a 2-0 series deficit to force Game 7. The Tide got incredible pitching in all seven games (“We probably struck out more than any champion in history,” Mello noted) but with grit and experience, the Recs managed to dig deep and win the close ones.
“I had less to do with this championship on the field and in the games than the previous two. But it’s the one I’m the most proud of,” Mello said. “You win that first one and you’re proving yourself. The second one is vindication. This one? It’s different … a special kind of different.”