WESTON, Mass. — As the Weston Wildcats season concluded, Nicholas Cross and Marco Buchbinder finished their first season together as teammates at Weston High School.

Going into the season, Cross and Buchbinder were each extremely excited to play with each other. Being good friends and cousins, Cross and Buchbinder had a unique opportunity to play high school baseball with each other.

Cross, a junior, was in his second year with the team (Covid canceled his freshman year), and Marco, a sophomore, was in his first with Weston. Marco played his freshman year for Belmont Hill before transferring back to Weston.

To say the least, Cross and Buchbinder left it all on the field this season. It felt like every time you picked your head up during a game, one or both of them would be on base.

This season, Cross hit .429 and had an OBP (on base percentage) of .541. This means that, in over half of his at-bats during the season, Cross reached base. Buchbinder had very similar stats, batting around .365 with a .582 OBP.

They each drove in and scored a ton of runs as well. Cross had 17 RBIs, which is a lot given that he hit second in the lineup and the total runs Weston scored this season. He also scored 16 times this season. Buchbinder had 15 RBIs, scoring 13 times.

Interestingly, of the 79 total runs, the Wildcats scored this season, Buchbinder and Cross combined drove in 32 of those. Altogether, Cross and Buchbinder accounted for 40% of all Weston RBIs and 37% of total runs, an astonishing tally.

One category that Buchbinder led the team in nearly all season was home runs with one. However, in the final game of the season Cross launched his first career high school home run, tying up his cousin in home runs for the season.

While the pair of Cross and Buchbinder are clearly very strong offensively, they are as good if not better on the defensive side. Cross started at first base for the majority of the season, while Buchbinder played at shortstop, taking the place of Jackson Brinker, who now plays collegiate baseball at St. Lawrence University.

At first base, Cross was simply stellar, making almost every single play and more. If there was a word to describe Cross, it would be dependable. No matter the circumstance, he always seems to know where to be and what to do. For example, in a recent game, Cross made one of the plays of the year at first base. While attempting a pickoff move, the Wildcat pitcher overthrew Cross and the baserunner took off for second base. Thinking on his feet, literally, Cross ran to retrieve the ball, which had bounced off the fence. In a split second, the ball left Cross’ hand and traveled well over 100 feet in time to punch out the runner at second base. This is normal for Cross, when there’s a play to be made he makes it time after time again.

Keeping with the trend, Buchbinder is much like his cousin. At shortstop, Buchbinder has a series of roles to play, whether it be covering second base to charging infield singles to throw over to Cross. Whatever needs to be done, Buchbinder does it. What makes Buchbinder a special shortstop is his ability to react quickly to the play in front of him. In short, he has a very good read of what is happening. That allows him to make plays all over the infield that most other shortstops are not even considering.

Lastly, as if they did not do enough already, Cross and Buchbinder pitch as well. Cross was a regular starter on the team the whole season and made a big leap from where he was the previous year. On the mound, Cross was much more composed and was able to work around hits and decrease the amount of walks he allowed. Cross focuses on throwing strikes across the plate and forcing hitters to beat him and the defense behind him. In his final performance, he went a full seven innings versus Maimonides and got the win in his final appearance of the season.

In his limited time on the mound, Buchbinder got it done, getting outs for Weston and moving the game along. While certainly not a regular pitcher, it is just one more feather in his cap.

It’s clear that Cross and Buchbinder push each other to be better – having the sort of rivalry that brings the best out of each of them.

Looking ahead to next season, it is hard to ask more out of Cross and Buchbinder given what they accomplished this spring. However, Cross and Buchbinder will almost certainly expect more from themselves next season as they both will need to fill the roles on and off the field left by the outgoing seniors.

Overall, Cross and Buchbinder had a fantastic season, and it is quite clear that baseball runs deep in the family.

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