When the season began for Hudson (Mass.) Post 100, veteran coach Ryan Bowen wasn’t sure what to expect from his team.

He had some experienced players, but wasn’t sure how they would fit together or if they could make team history simply by qualifying for the Massachusetts state tournament in a year the state wasn’t hosting it.

Now Hudson has met, if not exceeded, all expectations at the American Legion World Series in Shelby, North Carolina.

“About halfway through the year, we realized it was possible to get to the state tournament,” said Bowen, who became Hudson’s head coach in 2017. “On top of that, we had never made it to the state tournament as a non-host, so just getting there was a big deal for us.”

“So thinking beyond that was obviously still a long way off.”

That gap quickly narrowed for Post 100, but not without surviving a few scares in the state tournament that sent its champion and runner-up to the Northeast Regional in Manchester, NH.

Hudson had previously had no more than two wins in three state tournaments it hosted, with the best finish coming in 2011, Bowen’s third and final year as a player.

This season, after qualifying for the 2024 state tournament at Fitton Field in Worcester, Massachusetts, Post 100 lost its opener 10-7 and trailed 5-2 in an elimination game early in the sixth inning before rallying for a 6-5 win.

After a 13-1 win, Hudson’s team looked to be out of contention in the semifinals, trailing 8-0. But Post 100 rallied to win 9-8, securing a regional berth and a state championship appearance against perennial power Shrewsbury.

Even after Shrewsbury clinched the Massachusetts title with a resounding 14-3 victory, Bowen was confident his team was ready for the historic event it was about to write.

“We won three games in the state tournament even though our backs were against the wall just to get the game against Shrewsbury,” Bowen said. “We showed we can fight when we need to.”

At the regional championship, Hudson played five games in five days and won them all.

“We played so many games in so few days that we could only take it day by day,” Bowen said. “That’s what we’ve done all year. By the time we got to the regional tournament, we felt battle-hardened.”

Chase Donahue was named region MVP and Post 100 won four straight games by one run before overcoming a one-run deficit with seven runs in the sixth inning to defeat Cumberland (RI) Post 14 15-9 and secure a spot in the ALWS.

“In that fifth game, both teams were obviously down to their pitching staff, so we won the war of attrition,” Bowen said. “We thought we had a good group of baseball players. We had a lot of experience. We just had to stick together as a unit.”