It was not exactly a banner weekend for White River Junction Post 84 and Lebanon Post 22 in their respective American Legion Baseball senior state tournaments, but each program’s coach is not dismissing what their squads accomplished in the regular season.
Entering the state tournament as the No. 1 seed in Vermont’s Southern Division for the second straight year, White River Junction dropped its opening contest to the North Division No. 4 seed, Lyndon, 16-7 on Saturday in Fair Haven, Vt.
Post 84 amassed seven hits on the afternoon, with Wyatt Cadwell and Solomon Flores each driving in two runs and Xander Oshoniyi picking up an RBI of his own. But White River Junction committed six errors in the loss.
“I really got to tip my hat to the way Lyndon came out of the gates on Saturday,” White River Junction coach Dylan Spencer said in a telephone interview on Monday.
“We knew coming into it they were going to be more talented than a typical (No. 4) seed might be. … The biggest weakness that we had was we weren’t able to get ourselves back into the dugout, whether that was errors early on in the game or maybe a long at-bat turns into a walk or having a quick hitting half of the inning as well.”
Post 84’s struggles carried into its second game of the tournament on Sunday against Addison County, in which it fell 7-4. With Oshoniyi on the bump, White River Junction allowed four runs in the top of the first inning — none of which were earned — and was not able to claw back into the game.
Oshoniyi, Flores, and Quinlan Grace each picked up an RBI in the loss.
“Even though that was a much closer game, I still go back to that first inning where we give up four unearned runs and make Xander have to throw an additional 15 pitches in the first inning — kind of just has a trickle-down effect for the rest of the game and how it goes,” Spencer said.
While he and his squad were expecting better results in the state tournament, “it’s still a good season,” Spencer said. “Winning the No. 1 seed back-to-back years is a tremendous honor for sure, and I can’t take away from that success throughout the regular season.”
Lebanon Post 22, which secured the No. 2 seed in District A for the New Hampshire state tournament, suffered a similar fate to White River Junction, dropping its two postseason contests.
In its first matchup with the No. 3 seed in District B, Rochester, Lebanon fell behind early and was unable to come back, falling 7-1 on Friday at Holman Stadium in Nashua. Nevin Marsh drove in Lebanon’s only run of the game.
Lebanon’s second tilt of the tournament against Keene on Saturday was a closer affair. In a contest that went into the seventh inning tied 1-1, Keene scored one run in the top of the final frame and eventually secured the 2-1 victory.
Patrick O’Neil, who threw five innings, allowing one run on five hits, while walking five and striking out four, also drove in Lebanon’s only run.
“I thought, overall, our pitching staff did a great job keeping us in both games,” Lebanon coach Travis Pelletier said in a telephone interview on Monday. “Our bats kind of went a little silent — just really couldn’t string together the big timely hits that we needed.”
For a team that only had 11 players most of the way, Pelletier was proud of what his squad was able to do this season.
“To go 11 guys in a 17-game league schedule in a short period of time, it’s a testament to their work ethic and what they did,” Pelletier said.
“So I hope when they look back on it, they see that it was a productive summer. We played a lot of good baseball; just unfortunately didn’t get to play a couple more games that we were hoping to.”
