White River Junction
The eight-team competition promises excitement and great hardball action. It could also be, however, the last kick at the can for White River Junction’s talented core, which this week helped capture Post 84’s second consecutive South Division title entering the double-elimination event.
Players such as Jordy Allard, Jacob and Hunter Perkins, Tyler and Kyle Hamilton and Dylan Spencer have, in some cases, played together since elementary school. That group also won six consecutive Vermont youth baseball titles and, in 2012, became the first Green Mountain squad to win more than one game at the New England regionals. It finished one victory shy of reaching the Cal Ripken World Series that year.
“It’s probably our last run,” said Allard, the team’s ace pitcher and a standout shortstop when he’s not on the mound. “We’ve been to the (Division I) state semifinals twice in high school, and we have two (Legion) South Division titles. A state championship now would be awesome.”
Jacob Perkins, a rising sophomore at Lyndon State College, will be too old to play Legion next season, as will Spencer and pitcher Wyatt Smith. Allard is off to NCAA Division II power Southern New Hampshire later this year and has dreams of playing in the New England Collegiate Baseball League or another such circuit a year from now.
Post 84 should still be a force next season, but it’s hard to see it having a better chance to advance to the Northeast regional tournament than it does right now. This year’s regional is scheduled for Aug. 2-6 in Shrewsbury, Mass., near Worcester.
“We just need to go out and prove what we’ve been about for years,” Jacob Perkins said. “We have a very good team and a good shot at winning it.”
Staying home should help.
The past two years, Post 84 team members and many of their families arose as early as 5 a.m. to be in either Rutland or Castleton, the two locations between which the tournament was split. Chugging over the mountains on a bumpy bus and waiting out hours between games was great for team bonding, but not for rest and rejuvenation.
“We won’t be awake at the crack of dawn and eating McDonalds riding home late at night,” said post baseball manager and assistant coach John O’Hara. “People don’t realize how much those bus rides take out of you.”
Three years ago, a Hartford Legion team comprised almost totally of school district residents couldn’t manage a doubleheader split on the last day of the regular season and missed claiming the area’s first Vermont state tournament berth in more than 20 years. The next year, still playing without a post affiliation, the program deployed a roster loaded with 15-year-olds, but nonetheless reached the tournament’s title game.
Last summer, an injured bunch playing under the newly-created banner of White River Junction Post 84 limped into the tournament and was knocked out in the semifinals. With that in mind, this season has been as much about minimizing physical impact as it has about winning, despite an ambitious nonleague schedule.
Kyle Hamilton, Tyler’s younger brother, is a strong option at catcher, freeing his older brother to play shortstop, outfield or pitch and reducing fatigue in his legs. Windsor High’s Ryland Richardson is another standout backstop, and schoolmate Duncan Frazier can also play behind the dish.
Springfield’s Brady Clark, a Vermont Academy student, can play outfield and infield and pitch. Other hurlers include the Perkins brothers, Hartford High graduates Smith and Spencer, Hanover High’s Moises Celaya, Windsor’s Robert Slocum and Woodstock’s Owen Tarleton.
Almost the entire roster can take the mound in a pinch, which is exactly what teams now need because of more conservative Legion pitching rules. That complicated bit of legislation can be read on the national organization’s website, but it generally erases the idea that a team can ride one or even two aces to a tournament championship.
“It brings out the best in teams overall,” said White River Junction pitcher and utility man Walker Farley. “Some teams aren’t going to be able to go far because they only have one good pitcher. I feel like we have the most depth out of anyone in the tournament.”
That’s in large part because of O’Hara, who moved to the area a few years ago after coaching high school and Legion ball in Western Massachusetts. A machine operator at Hypertherm, he evaluates and recruits local players, leading to the addition of competitors from Thetford, Woodstock and Windsor and the creation of a junior Legion team last summer, which is on what the post hopes is a one-year hiatus.
With a gentle yet intense teaching style, a sense of humor and a 5 o’clock shadow that appears by noon, O’Hara has been a huge hit, and longtime head coach Jarrod Grassi has allowed him an equal hand in steering the ship. O’Hara did much of the work to create the Post 84 baseball organization two years ago.
“I wanted to be competitive again, so to shoo away someone who can make you better would have been foolish,” said Grassi, also the Hartford High coach. “Our goal isn’t just to win (the state tournament) this year; it’s to sustain the program and be a thorn in people’s butts year after year.”
Emerging victorious next week won’t be easy. Defending state champion Brattleboro features UConn-bound pitcher Leif Bigelow, and Rutland has won two out of three meetings with Post 84 this summer. The North Division-champion Colchester Cannons are an entrenched power that regularly plays in tournaments across the country.
“We need to win now, because our window is closing,” Jacob Perkins said. “This weekend is going to show what we’re made of.”
White River Junction, 21-7-2 overall and 18-3 in Vermont Legion play, is the home team for its opening tournament game, a 4 p.m tilt Saturday against either Essex or S.D. Ireland from Hinesburg.
Notes: A new Vermont tournament feature this year is the use of seven-inning games during the first two days, with nine-inning contests thereafter. … O’Hara said his team will be designated as the home squad for all games unless it meets Colchester, the North’s No. 1 seed. In that case, a coin flip will be used to determine home and away. … Windsor High coach Jamie Richardson, father of Ryland, joined Post 84 this season as an assistant coach. … White River Junction has won seven consecutive games, including three against Brattleboro. … Unlike in recent years, a team that wins its first three games in Vermont state tournament play will earn the fourth day off and would have to lose twice in nine-inning games on the fifth day to fall short of the title. … A press box and concession stand was to be in place for the tournament, but the town of Hartford and the New England Collegiate Baseball League’s Upper Valley Nighthawks have not been able to produce one. … Allard, a Woodstock resident, said that had he not gotten to know the Perkins and Hamilton brothers through youth baseball, he likely would have attended Woodstock High instead of Hartford, where he was a three-sport athlete. … The nearby Veterans Administration hospital will host the tournament banquet for all competitors on Saturday night. … Although Vermont uses composite bats in state play, wood bats are used at the Northeast regionals. New Hampshire uses wood bats throughout its Legion season…. One of O’Hara’s players from his Massachusetts coaching days, Ryan Horstman, went on to compete for St. John’s (N.Y.) University and has climbed to the AA minor-league level with the Seattle Mariners organization.
Tris Wykes can be reached at twykes@vnews.com or 603-727-3227.