Westminster, Vt. — Hunter Perkins went 4-for-4 with a long home run as White River Junction Post 84 solidified its hold on first place with a 14-2 win over Bellows Falls on Wednesday night in a Southern Vermont American Legion game at Hadley Field.

Perkins also drove in three runs for Post 84 (11-2).

When Post 84 lost in the Vermont championship game last summer, coach Jarrod Grassi knew where his team needed improvement most.

“Depth — that’s been the biggest difference this year,” said Grassi, who had 14 players in Bellows Falls on Wednesday.

“Still, we were missing a couple of guys and with the injuries we’ve had, we haven’t been able to have the nine players on the field that I would like to see out there,” he said.

While the offense of Perkins topped the highlights, the Post 84 pitching also was outstanding. Jacob Perkins went the first four, followed by Codi Smith for two with heat-throwing Jody Allard finishing up. Bellows Falls, which did not have a hit after the third inning, had just three hits in the game and 11 Terriers went down on strikes. BF had just one baserunner after the third inning.

Hunter Perkins, the left-handed hitting third baseman, had two singles his first two times up, then whacked a long home run to right-center in his third trip. When he batted for the fourth time, BF went into a shift with just one infielder on the left side of the infield. He walked in that appearance, then singled in the seventh to complete his perfect night on offense.

The only blip on the night was in the first inning, when White River made its only two errors that led to BF’s runs. Post 37 got only one runner to third after the first inning.

Post 84 came out of the contest with a half-game lead over Brattleboro (11-3). White River has five regular-season games left beginning with a doubleheader with Randolph (2-8) and single games with Bennington (1-11) on Monday and Lakes Region (4-7) on Tuesday. All those games will be at home. The final game will be at Lakes Region on Thursday. Should White River and Brattleboro finish with identical records, Post 84 owns the tie-breaker.

Bellows Falls (9-7) also will likely be one of the four southern teams to take part in the state tourney starting July 23 at Castleton State University. BF has two games at Brattleboro to wrap up its regular season.

“We’ve got to right the ship now,” BF coach Bill Lockerby said. “Forget about this and get ready for Brattleboro on Friday.”

For the most part, the game was over after Post 84 batted in the first inning with six runs off BF starter Colby Howe, who played this spring for New England College.

Five of the first six batters reached for Post 84. Tyler Hamilton started the game with a single, quickly got to second on a wild pick-off throw and scored on a long single by Hunter Perkins. Five more runs came across the plate before the inning was over, two on a long triple by Moises Calaya.

Jacob Perkins added three hits to give the Perkins brothers seven hits on the night. Calaya added a two-hit game.

“These kids are starting to gel,” Grassi said.