Foxboro star shines at plate, at 3b, on mound
Over the last three years, Foxboro’s Sean O’Leary has developed into one of the top players in all of Eastern Mass. as the six-footone, 205 pound left-handed hitter tortures opponents both at the plate and on the mound.
His emergence as a superstar has been in direct correlation with Foxboro’s newfound contending status.
“He’s the centerpiece of putting this program in the direction we have wanted to get it going in the last fourplus years,” Foxboro coach Derek Suess said. “The impact he has had on and off the field is hard to replicate.”
Suess began hearing about O’Leary’s potential as a player back when the third baseman was still in middle school but was wary about the prospect of him taking off for private school. O’Leary, however, remained steadfast to the Warriors community. After a freshman year that was wiped away due to the COVID-19 pandemic, O’Leary started every game at third base his sophomore year
Then, O’Leary and the rest of the Foxboro program took off in 2022. He ran through the Hockomock League to the tune of a .443 average with 13 extra base hits. While his main array of talents appeared at the plate through his power to all fields and control of the strike zone, O’Leary was instrumental on the mound. He went 6-2 with a 2.25 ERA. He led the Warriors to a 13-7 regular season and its first tournament appearance in 2019.
Yet it was in the postseason where O’Leary truly made the Massachusetts baseball community take notice. In the Warriors’ opening win over Saugus, O’Leary followed up a game-tying seventh inning home run from Ryan LeClair with a walk-off blast, the first of his career.
“That was my favorite memory and always will be playing,” O’Leary said. “Nothing will top that feeling.”
His two triples in Foxboro’s state quarterfinal game with Bishop Stang helped propel the Warriors to the Div. 3 Final Four. There, he went toe-to-toe with University of Virginia bound left-hander Evan Blanco before ultimately falling short.
In August he committed to continue his playing career at the University of Massachusetts Lowell.
“Coach (Ken) Harring at UMass Lowell always says they want blue-collar players and that’s our mentality at Foxboro so it matched up perfectly,” O’Leary said.
Now, as a senior, O’Leary has Foxboro as one of the leading state championship contenders in Div. 3. The Warriors are 4-3 albeit with two of those losses to Div. 1 and 2 state championship contenders Franklin and Milton. Seuss knows he has something special and is now just trying to hold onto it as long as possible.
“Sean is just a guy you don’t see very often, especially in this program,” Suess said. “We’ve had some down years … To get things going with guys like Sean and Ryan LeClair, they earn every recognition they get.”
Dragon attack
Duxbury’s Nicholas Ayers ensured the Dragons’ April vacation slate of baseball generated a lasting memory. On April 19, Ayers blasted a walk-off grand slam to lift Duxbury to a 5-2 win over Braintree. The Dragons sit at 6-1 overall.