High school baseball: New Hampshire school's 89-game run leads list of longest winning streaks

In the spring of 2005, a pair of teams raced to claim the all-time longest high school baseball win streak from leader Archbishop Molloy (Queens, N.Y.), which had reportedly won 68 straight games from 1963 to 1966 under legendary coach Jack Curran.

And then in 2012, it happened all over again.

La Cueva (Albuquerque) was the first team to surpass Archbishop Molloy, doing so on April 2, 2005, with a doubleheader sweep of Highland that put La Cueva's win streak at 70. The Bears built their streak slowly, starting with the first victory in 2002 and stretching over four seasons. Rio Grande snapped La Cueva's streak with a rather convincing 17-8 win.

Homer (Mich.) took the quicker route to the national record. The Trojans went 38-0 in 2004 to win the Michigan Division III state championship and passed La Cueva on June 4, 2005, when it defeated Union City 14-3 in the district championships for win No. 71. Homer won four more games and advanced to the Division III state finals again before losing to Saginaw Nouvel.

The race between Portsmouth (N.H.) and Martensdale-St. Mary's (Martensdale, Iowa) in 2012 saw Portsmouth break the record twice and St. Mary's once. Portsmouth beat Pembroke Academy on May 12, it edged Homer for win No. 76 with a streak that started back in 2008. Portsmouth went on to win seven more games, another state championship and finished with 83 straight wins.

Like Homer, Martensdale-St. Mary's took a much quicker approach to the record. After setting a state record with a 43-0 record in 2010, the Blue Devils, who play in the summer, went 44-0 in 2012. They got the record with a 10-0 win over Twin Cedars on July 19, 2012 to put them at 84 in a row. Three more wins gave the Blue Devils a second straight state title.

But Portsmouth wasn't done. The Clippers won their first six games of the 2012 season to reclaim the national record at 89 before losing to St. Thomas Aquinas on April 30, 2012.

Martensdale-St. Mary's still had a chance to reclaim the record as well. But after winning their first game of the 2012 summer season, the Blue Devils fell  4-3 to Des Moines East on May 22 ending their streak at 88.

It turns out, however, that the original record Homer and La Cueva were chasing may have never actually existed. Archbishop Molloy, coached by Curran who won 1,708 baseball games in his 52-year coaching career, reportedly won 68 games between 1963 and 1966. However, there's reason to believe that those games were league games and they may have been a combination of fall and spring win streaks.
An article in the New York Daily News on June 19, 1966, stated that the 68 consecutive wins were "league" wins. Other reports about Curran's career in "The Beehive," a Molloy alumni newsletter, lists the 68 wins as league wins as well. Additionally, Al Harvin wrote about Curran in the New York Times in 1982, stating that he had only "one undefeated season, 36-0 in 1970," which doesn't make sense for a coach that was supposed to have won 68 games over a four-year span. Research by Barry Sollenberger of the National Sports News Service also indicated that the wins covered the fall and spring season.

So if Molloy didn't hold the record, Capitol Hill of Oklahoma City most certainly did. Capitol Hill won 66 in a row from 1952 to 1954, breaking the record of 65, set by Waxahachie (Texas) from 1924 to 1927.

One of the more improbable ends to a long streak came in 1985 in Tennessee. Unicoi County became the first team in the nation to hit over 100 home runs as a team, hitting 100 and 101 in the top of the seventh of the championship game to build a 5-0 lead. But in the bottom of the seventh, Chattanooga Central scored six runs, including a walk-off grand slam home run, to end the streak.

The win streaks are for spring seasons only and not for fall-to-spring win streaks. Cameron (Okla.) holds the longest win streak for fall-spring teams at 84 in a row. The Yellowjackets' streak stretched from the fall of 1988, to the spring of 1989, to the fall of 1989 to the spring of 1990. Roff (Okla.) could threaten that streak. The Tigers won 26 games in the fall of 2020 and went 33-0 in the spring of 2021 for a streak of 59 games in a row.

The most recent streak on the list belongs to Calvary Christian (Clearwater, Fla.), which won 60 in a row over the 2017 and 2018 seasons.

Sources include the NFHS record book, state association record books, Iwasatthegame.com (Oklahoma records) and research using newspapers.com. Additions or corrections, kevinaskeland65@gmail.com.

1.    89 — Portsmouth (N.H.), 2008-12
2.    88 — Martensdale-St. Mary's (Martensdale, Iowa), 2010-12
3.    75 — Homer (Mich.), 2004-05
4.    70 — La Cueva (Albuquerque), 2002-05
5.    68 — Archbishop Molloy (Queens, N.Y.), 1963-66
6.    67 — Sumrall (Miss.), 2008-10
7.    66 — Capitol Hill (Oklahoma City, Okla.), 1952-54
8.    65 — Waxahachie (Texas), 1924-27
9.    64 — St. Benedict's Prep (Newark, N.J.), 1946-50
9.    64 — Naugatuck (Conn.), 1969-73

9.    64 — Nekoosa (Wis.), 1980-83
9.    64 — Edwardsville (Ill.), 1990-91
9.    64 — Enterprise (Utah), 1992-95
14.  61 — Evans (Ga.), 1988-90
15.  60 — Eaton (Colo.), 2008-10
15.  60 — Calvary Christian (Clearwater, Fla.), 2016-18
17.  59 — Kee (Lansing, Iowa), 1991-92
17.  59 — Evansville Reitz (Ind.), 1978-79
19.  58 — Wilton (Iowa), 2005-06
19.  58 — St. Cloud Cathedral (St. Cloud, Minn.), 2014-16

19.  58 — Webster (Wisc.), 2018-21
22.  57 — West Perry (Elliottsburg, Pa.), 1979-81
22.  57 — Wayne (Bicknell, Utah), 2006-09
24.  56 — Grand Haven (Mich.), 1960-62
25.  55 — Muskegon (Mich.), 1941-45
25.  55 — Unicoi County (Erwin, Tenn.), 1984-85
26.  54 — South San Antonio (San Antonio), 1966-68
26.  54 — Bowie (Md.), 1981-83
26.  54 — Cottonwood (Ala.), 1985-88
30.  53 — Garber (Okla.), 1960-61

30.  53 — Amsterdam (N.Y.), 1972-75
30.  53 — Omaha Northwest (Neb.), 1982-85
33.  52 — White Oak (Jacksonville, N.C.), 1978-80
33.  52 — Shawnee (Okla.), 2016-18
33.  52 — Tucson (Ariz.), 1942-46 (against high school competition)
36.  51 — Panguitch (Utah), 2011-13
36.  51 — New Hope (Miss.), 1997-98
38.  50 — Lockhart (S.C.), 1972-74 (no longer fields baseball team)
38.  50 — Enterprise (Utah), 1984-88