Bellows Falls Babe Ruth too much for Claremont to handle

CLAREMONT- Bellows Falls traveled to Claremont on Monday night to take on the Cardinals, and as the regular season is winding down, Bellows Falls picked up a big road win, 16-7, due to a high-powered offense and smart base running.

After the first three innings Monday, BF shot out to an 8-2 lead, including plating four runs in the top of the third. In the third, BF took advantage of Claremont errors and dominated the base-paths. They scored on a passed-ball, scored on a groundball that resulted in a fielding error, and scored again on a throwing error. BF did have an RBI on a sac-fly in the inning. Finally, Claremont was able to get out of the inning on a nice catch by first baseman Mike Gaspar, who lunged to his left and snagged a liner that would have travelled down the line.

In the top of the fourth, Claremont replaced Jarrett Lapointe on the mound with Zack Bundy, and Bundy came in and saw success to begin his pitching on the day. After forcing a flyout, he allowed a single, but then forced a hard ground ball to Ty Theriault at shortstop, who turned two and got Claremont out of the inning.

In the bottom-half of the fourth, Claremont rallied for three runs, getting to within three, down 8-5. In the inning, Ethan Belvin hit an RBI double to the gap in right-center, scoring Caden Ferland on the play, Eric Peaslee hit an RBI double to center, scoring Belvin, and Charles Palmer scored on a Sean Adams chopper to first that was mishandled.

Bellows Falls answered the big inning from Claremont by scoring three more in the fifth and the sixth to put the game away. All six runs were on RBIs.

Claremont scored two more in the bottom of the seventh in a comeback effort. Gaspar knocked in Theriault with an RBI-single and Gaspar later scored when Bundy reached on a fielding error.

For BF, Grady Lockerby was 2-5 with two 2-RBI doubles, Jamison Nystrom was 3-4 with 4 runs scored, Colton Baldasaro and Ethan Kelley were 2-4, and Kevin Patterson was 2-5. For Claremont, Theriault was 3-4 with 2 runs and Gaspar had two singles and a run.

Both teams are back in action on Wednesday, as BF hosts Sunapee and Claremont travels to Walpole. Both games are scheduled for 6 p.m. Playoffs are set to start on Monday, July 23 for the Fall Mountain Babe Ruth League.