As the Vermont American Legion senior baseball regular season winds down, White River Junction Post 84 is gearing up for a postseason run in the state tournament, which begins on Saturday in Fair Haven.
With one full game on Wednesday at Bellows Falls and another partial game left to be finished on Thursday against Bennington, White River Junction finds itself in a strong position heading into this weekend’s tournament.
The tournament, which will begin with a wild card game to determine the No. 4 seed in the Southern Division, will then be double elimination featuring the top four seeds from the league’s two divisions.
Entering Wednesday’s contest, White River Junction sits at 11-5 and can enter the postseason no worse than No. 2 seed in the Southern Division.
However, if Post 84 wins out, or the current No. 1 seed in the Southern Division entering Wednesday, Ludlow, falls to Lakes Region and White River Junction wins one of its last two, it would jump to the No. 1 seed.
“With the postseason starting on Saturday, we’re going to try and win those games but also know that the best interest for our ballclub is to kind of stay sharp and fully healthy and have everybody available for the weekend games,” said White River Junction coach Dylan Spencer.
White River Junction’s skipper, who graduated from Hartford High in 2017 and has been heading up the Legion squad since 2021, acknowledged that the season so far has been “pretty great” despite the usual pitfalls of summer ball.
“We miss a lot of guys on weekends, and we’ve got a lot of guys in and out,” he said, noting 10 different pitchers have thrown for his team.
“It’s been a little bit of a struggle. We’ve gone to doubleheaders with 10 guys and tried to do the best we could, and fortunate enough to have enough talent on the team so when the starting nine isn’t there I still have quality contributions from guys who are kind of in the middle of the roster there.”
The driving force on offense this season has been Xander Oshoniyi, who recently graduated from Thetford Academy and is headed off to Bates College.
Oshoniyi was a key cog in the Panther machine that completed an unbeaten season and picked up its second straight VPA Division III state championship in June.
Spencer said Oshoniyi has hit around .435 with an OBP “in the high fives” and leads the squad in hits, runs and stolen bases and is second on the team in RBIs.
“He’s been a catalyst for us at the top of our lineup, trying to get things going early on in games,” Spencer said.
Other key contributors on offense include Solomon Flores, who has heated up in the last 12 games, batting .333, leading the team in RBIs, and Quinlan Grace, who has three home runs on the season.
While White River Junction’s offense has been clicking, Spencer acknowledged that the team’s strength is its pitching. The team’s ERA is in “the mid-twos” with a team WHIP in “the low ones”
“This is probably the first group that I’ve had where we strike out over two to one — strikeout-to-walk ratio — we don’t really walk a lot of guys,” he said.
One standout on the mound has been Wyatt Chambers, who wrapped up his junior season with Hartford High this spring.
The rising senior has thrown the most innings for White River Junction and has an ERA of 0.67, with opponents’ batting average against him being around .123.
“I would stack up our top four arms against anybody’s in the state. I truly think the depth that we have (with) the top four pitchers we have should be able to propel us pretty deep in this postseason run,” he said.
Spencer said getting the No. 1 seed in the Southern Division would give his squad a better path, as it would allow it to be the home team for its first few matchups.
Regardless of seeding, heading into the tournament, Spencer is confident his team has what it takes to make a deep run in the postseason.
“All things considered, I’m pretty confident with this group,” he said. “Like I said, a lot of guys were mixed in throughout the course of the season, and we were able to kind of battle through that.”
According to the Vermont American Legion Baseball website, if White River Junction remains the No. 2 seed in the Southern Division, its first tournament game would be at 1 p.m. on Saturday at Fair Haven Union High School. If it jumps to the No. 1 seed, its first game would be at 4 p.m. at the Fair Haven Rec Field.
For the full slate of the Vermont State Tournament and for more information, visit https://vtlegion.sportngin.com/statetourney.
