LEBANON — The New Hampshire COVID Baseball League season ended on Monday, not in the fashion expected but in the one way it could have been stopped without a champion.
The Upper Valley Anglers and Dover Greentoppers were to meet in the final game of the best-of-three NHCBL championship series at Lebanon High School on Monday evening. That contest was canceled shortly after noon after team and league authorities learned of a Dover player’s possible exposure to someone who had tested positive for the coronavirus.
Upper Valley general manager Pete St. Pierre, Dover counterpart Dave Rouleau, NHCBL organizer Tim Lunn, Upper Valley coach Rob Woodward and Anglers team organizer Bruce Sacerdote discussed the situation and agreed to cancel the game out of an abundance of caution. The Anglers and Greentoppers will be considered co-champions, having split the first two games of the championship series on Saturday and Sunday.
With players soon returning to high school and college, the final game will not be made up.
“There’s a lot of logic to that,” said Sacerdote, whose Hanover High sophomore son, Sam, pitched and played the infield for the Anglers. “Even though we think that it’s statistically unlikely that anyone on Dover has it, we can’t take that chance.”
Upper Valley, with a roster filled largely from Hanover High, Lebanon High and Kimball Union Academy, went 16-10 and was the fourth seed in the tournament. Dover, at 13-13, was the sixth seed. The Anglers won Saturday’s opening game, 15-4 in five innings, and the Greentoppers evened the set with a 3-1 win in Somersworth, N.H., on Sunday.
Greg Fennell can be reached at gfennell@vnews.com or 603-727-3226.