This weekend, Bellows Falls Post 37 and White River Junction Post 84 were both in action as the third seed and fourth seed in Vermont Southern Legion Division, respectively. In the double elimination tournament, both teams lost close games to the top two teams out of the Northern Division at Castleton University on Saturday. On Sunday, they traveled to St. Peter’s Field in Rutland, and lost to the top two teams in the Southern Division. Despite the early exits from the State Tournament, both teams saw plenty of success this summer, with BF Post 37 finishing with a record of 15-8 and WRJ Post 84 finishing at 13-9.
ESSEX 5 BELLOWS FALLS 2
Bellows Falls got the tourney started Saturday morning with a 9:30 game against Essex Post 91 (13-8). BF fell behind early in the game, allowing a run in the first on a Ryan Young RBI groundout, and three runs in the second (1 RBI from Tyler Roberge and 2 RBIs from Grady Cram).
Bellows Falls picked up a run in the top of the fifth when Griffin Waryas got caught in a pickle while attempting to steal two, allowing enough distraction for Josh Woods to score from third.
In the top of the seventh, trailing 5-1, Bellows Falls was able to load the bases with no outs after Essex replaced Maverick King on the mound.
On King, Post 91 head coach Reece Tanguay, said, “He’s been our best pitcher all year. He has great command. We had to get him out to have him available later in the tournament. We trusted our other guys… it got a little sketchy towards the end but it worked out.”
Woods then hit a groundball that was thrown home for the force out, and then a throw to third sailed into the outfield, allowing Tucker Wright to score on the play. With runners on second and third after a double steal, BF had the tying run at the plate, but back-to-back fly outs ended the game and sent BF to the loser’s bracket.
King pitched six innings, struck out 8 and only allowed one hit and one run. “We ran in to a helluva pitcher… he pitched like a machine,” said BF head coach Bill Lockerby. “He was pounding the zone… and we couldn’t get anything going offensively really against him, but it was a competitive game.”
Seth Balch pitched for BF, before reporting to camp on Sunday to prepare for the Shrine football game. Balch threw six innings, allowing six hits and five runs while striking out three.
COLCHESTER 5 WHITE RIVER JCT. 3
White River faced off against the Colchester Cannons (13-8) after the BF game at 12:30 Saturday. WRJ put two runs on the board in the top of the first, as Hunter Perkins hit an RBI standup-double that one-hopped the right field fence, and Moises Celeya later knocked in Perkins with a single to center. Colchester answered back with two runs of their own in the bottom half to tie the game after one inning.
In the bottom of the second with two outs, Jackson Root hit a 2-RBI single to left center to give the Cannons a 4-2 advantage. In the third, they added another, as Justin Dattilio had an RBI single to center that scored pitcher Saul Minaya to take a 5-2 lead.
In the top of the fifth, WRJ made some more noise on offense. Ryland Richardson reached safely on an infield error, and Perkins and Duncan Frazer each walked. Richardson scored on a passed ball to cut the lead to 5-3, but while Celeya was at the plate, Frazer got tagged out stealing second to end the inning.
Tyler Hamilton pitched a solid game for WRJ, but the offense was stagnant at times when it needed to be productive, and Post 84 joined Post 37 in the loser’s bracket.
BRATTLEBORO 10 BELLOWS FALLS 0
The Southern Division No. 1 seed Brattleboro (17-4) was rolling early and often Sunday at St. Peter’s Field in Rutland.
In the top of the first with two outs, BF’s Clayton Groenewold hit a liner on a rope to right field, but it was snagged on a diving attempt by Carroll to end the inning. That was the theme of ball game: Everything BF did, Brattleboro topped it.
Brattleboro scored on a double by Dan Petrie and a single by Tanner Bell in the first. In the second, Tyler Millerick and Tommy Carroll picked up RBIs, and Brattleboro Post 5 had an early 4-0 lead after two.
Adam Newton started on the mound for Post 5, allowing zero hits and three and a third, while striking out three and walking zero.
Kendal Heath started for BF, going four innings, allowing seven runs and striking out two.
Brattleboro went on to score 3 in the fourth, 2 in the fifth, and 1 and in the sixth to run away with the game and send BF packing.
Despite the early exit from the tournament, Bill Lockerby was proud of his team’s play this summer, with BF’s only regular season losses coming against playoff teams (3 losses to Brattleboro, 2 to Rutland, and 1 to WRJ). “We had a helluva year,” he said. “Coming into this year, we lost a bunch of our lineup. We really exceeded what I thought we were going to do offensively. I coached as an assistant to Bob Lockerby for 10 years and we never had a 15-6 regular season… so in my eyes it’s one of the best seasons that we’ve had in a while.”
On his group of player this summer, Lockerby said, “Good attitudes… this was a good group. There was a couple times where we got behind… and it’s easy to kind of hang your head and take the loss… but they battled back and won a couple games from behind… an all-around great group of kids.”
RUTLAND 12 WHITE RIVER JCT. 4
Rutland got on the board first, as Joshua Beayon hit an RBI single and Reece De Castro hit a deep RBI double in the bottom of the first to go up 2-0. They added a third run in the bottom of the second with an RBI groundout from Reilly Shannon.
In the top of the third, WRJ was on the verge of scoring. Alex Emerson and Ryland Richardson had back-to-back, two-out infield singles. Hunter Perkins then ripped a liner to right, which was scooped up, thrown to the cut off and relayed home to gun out Emerson at the dish to end the top-half.
WRJ was able to push through in the fourth, as a single from Kyle Hamilton scored Moises Celeya to make the score 3-1. In the bottom of the fourth, Alex Bushway replaced Robert Slocum on the mound for WRJ. After a single that loaded the bases, Shannon hit a 2-RBI double to deep left-center.
Trailing 5-1, WRJ rallied to make it a game in the top of the fifth. After an intentional walk that put Celeya on and loaded the bases, Duncan Frazer walked on four pitches to score Emerson. Hamilton then delivered another RBI that scored Richardson, and Brady Clark walked to score a run.
With the score at 5-4 midway through the fifth, Rutland exploded on offense, scoring 7 runs in the bottom-half of the fifth to stretch the lead to its eventual final, 12-4.
Post 84 catcher, Duncan Frazer, on the team’s success this summer, said, “We had an 18-man roster with 4 players that are ineligible to play next year so I would say our season was pretty successful. Our overall goal was to make the tournament and we did just that. It would have been nice to be able to pull out a win against one of the two teams that we played. But the baseball gods just weren’t on our side either day.”
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