South Royalton
The emphatic 17-2 win, abbreviated to five innings by the 15-run mercy rule, propelled the undefeated Royals to their second consecutive championship game against Danville. South Royalton (16-0) will look to repeat as champions when it meets the No. 2 Indians (12-4), tentatively scheduled for Friday at Burlington’s Centennial Field.
“I was running out of gas a little bit around third; I just wanted to push it out,” McDougall said of his round-tripper hit deep to right field. “I didn’t know it was going to go that far. I mean, I hit it and just took off.”
The senior had two hits and scored three runs in the rout. On the mound, he was lights-out, issuing one walk and one strikeout while surrendering four hits. The Royals set the game’s one-sided tone in the first inning by retiring the Cougars (8-5) in order, then putting up seven runs on starting pitcher Evan Crumb.
Stephen Paige initiated the first-inning deluge with a single, then scored on a wild pitch after McDougall reached on an error. Dominick Small drove in McDougall with a groundout before SoRo’s two-out rally produced an additional five runs with Brock, Zeb Perrault (three RBIs overall) and Nicholas Howe each driving in runs. The Royals sent 11 batters to the plate over the course of the inning.
Facing Danville, which defeated Arlington, 10-2, on Wednesday, comes as no surprise to coach Mike Ballou’s crew.
“It’s sort of been planned since last year,” Ballou said. “Each team just had to get through the season. We scrimmaged them preseason and pretty much had a good idea that if everybody plays the way they can play, we’ll probably both be there again.”
Justin Brock came in to pitch the fifth inning, shutting down Long Trail in order before the hosts used the bottom half of the frame to build the 15-run cushion needed to enact the mercy rule (pinch-hitter George Carr drove in the final run on a groundout).
Brock’s ironclad relief stint was key, because it kept SoRo ace Josh Scoskie fully rested for Friday’s final.
Brock’s appearance on the mound was his first after returning from a dislocated shoulder he suffered while sliding into home plate during a game last month.
The dislocation, which occurred on the senior’s non-pitching shoulder and caused him to miss multiple games, didn’t seem to slow him down against the Cougars. Brock, the starting second baseman, finished 3-for-3 at the plate with two RBIs and three runs scored.
Moments after he retired the final Long Trail batter, Brock was hoisted by his teammates for the hanging of number 16 — next to a goose egg in the loss column — atop the left-field scoreboard’s D-IV standings.
“We have a tradition,” McDougall said. “Every game that we win, we go and put the win up in the column.”
SoRo has been dominant all season, never losing by fewer than four runs. A squad that played errorless baseball against Long Trail has to stay on top of its game one more time to go out as undefeated champs.
“The biggest thing I don’t want them to do is hang their heads if they make an error and lose the game by not being ready to play or a mental part of it,” Ballou said. “Just go out and play your best baseball and if you win, you win. If you lose, you gave it your best effort, played your heart out and that’s the way life goes.”
McDougall, who described Centennial as a nerve-racking venue from his experience last year, will attempt to reclaim championship glory on the eve of his high school graduation.
“We know what it takes; we’ve been there before,” McDougall said. “But we can’t come into it thinking, ‘Oh, we’re undefeated,’ and take them lightly and get beat. We’re just going to play as hard as we can, and hopefully we’ll come out with it.”