Manchester
Exeter dressed only nine players, but Post 22 will take a tournament triumph any way it can after its two previous trips to the eight-team, double-elimination event resulted in consecutive losses and a quick trip home.
“Enjoy it, get your rest and be ready to go full-tilt tomorrow,” Lebanon coach Rob Woodward told his team, which advanced to play two-time defending state champion Rochester at 7 p.m. tonight.
Post 22 starting pitcher Trey Parker allowed six hits and three runs, two of them earned, during 4⅓ innings. The Kimball Union Academy student struck out five batters and walked three and was pulled after surrendering four consecutive one-out hits during the fifth inning. He was followed by Cedric Elkouh, who went 2⅔ innings, allowing one hit and no runs while striking out one batter and walking none.
Broughton, usually the second baseman, pitched the eighth inning and into the ninth, giving up three hits and two runs. He struck out two batters, walked none and was pulled for Derek Griffin just before his pitch count reached the point where he would have become ineligible to return to the mound today. Griffin walked one batter and struck out two to end the game.
Woodward said his team’s inability to close out clashes with Concord Post 21 and Sweeney Post 2 last week taught tough lessons about not losing focus late. Lebanon blew a 9-2 lead in the last inning during its loss to Sweeney.
“We’ve been preaching all year that you’ve got to finish,” said the visibly relieved coach. “Today, it seemed we were a little more relaxed when the ninth inning came around.”
Lebanon (12-5), District A’s third-place finisher, was the visitor while going up against Exeter (11-6), the District B runner-up. Post 22 used hits by May, Day, Will Smith and Broughton to take a 3-0 lead during the fifth inning but found itself tied by the end of that frame.
An Elkouh single, a May triple and a wild pitch gave Lebanon a 5-3 lead in the sixth inning. A Parker walk, singles by Broughton and Matt Braley and an error by the center fielder created two more runs during the seventh for a 7-3 advantage.
Exeter pulled within 7-5 in the eighth before Broughton produced two strikeouts and Griffin two more to end the game. Braley, Post 22’s third baseman, continued his recent fielding struggles with two errors, his fourth and fifth in his last two contests. Smith was picked off and doubled off second in a pair of baserunning gaffes.
Word filtering around the stadium was that six Exeter players and its coach were attending an out-of-state showcase event instead of the state tournament. Post 22 faces a much stiffer challenge today against Rochester, which finished third last year at the Northeast Regional in Bristol, Conn. Post 7 has shut out six opponents this summer and dispatched Laconia Post 1 in seven innings on Friday.
Rochester has all-state pitchers in Shaun Cormier, Matt White, Brody Ashley and Will Truel, a 6-foot-3 hurler who’s headed to NCAA Division I Bryant (R.I.) University. The closer is J.D. Funk, a onetime all-state player who competed for Connecticut’s Cheshire Academy this spring and leads Rochester in hitting.
Nonetheless, Woodward said he believes in his club.
“We’re going to relax and be ready,” the coach said. “I told our guys that if you come to play your best baseball, I’ll take you bunch over anyone, even Rochester.”
Notes: May, a 5-foot-6, 130-pound rising senior and shortstop at Woodsville High, said it’s close to an hour’s drive from his home to Lebanon High, where Post 22 plays its home games. … May’s mother wore white tights imprinted with enormous baseball seams. … Lebanon High coach Doug Ashey, Broughton’s uncle, attended the game. … Rochester entered the tournament batting .341 as a team and has lost only one New Hampshire game this summer, a setback to Merrimack Post 98 last weekend. … Exeter was guided by assistant coach James Mundy, who just completed his sophomore season at Lyndon (Vt.) State College, where he’s an atmospheric science major. Until late in the game, Post 32 did not deploy a player as a first-base coach while at bat. … Because national Legion pitching rules now center around pitches thrown in a game and not innings, tournament overseers watched carefully while counting pitches with a clicker from behind the plate.
Tris Wykes can be reached at twykes@vnews.com or 603-727-3227.