RANDOLPH — The White River Junction Post 84 senior American Legion baseball team claimed the Vermont South Division’s fourth and final playoff berth Wednesday evening.
The visitors routed Randolph Post 9, 13-0, in six innings and set up an 11 a.m., first-round state tournament game at Colchester High against the event’s host team.
Post 84 pitchers Robert Slocum, Alex Bushway and Grayson Frazer confounded Post 9 while the offense pounded out 11 hits and took advantage of assorted errors, mental and physical, by a Randolph foe that staggered to a 2-22 regular-season finish and is 5-39 the past two years. Many of Post 9’s players suit up for White River Valley High during the spring.
White River Junction had been battling Bennington Post 13 for the South’s final postseason slot, but won the team’s final clash last week and then beat Randolph on Tuesday and Wednesday to earn a fifth consecutive state tournament entry for a Hartford-White River Junction squad. The town reached the state finals in 2015 and 2017 and the semifinals in 2016 before floundering to two consecutive losses last year in the double-elimination format.
“We’ve been playing meaningful baseball the last week and a half,” said coach John O’Hara, whose team is 12-12 in state play. “Once you get there, seeds don’t matter. It’s about making routine plays and doing the small stuff. There’s no pressure on us.”
White River Junction scored once during Wednesday’s first inning and tacked on three runs during the third, three in the fourth, two in the fifth and four in the sixth. Randolph managed just three hits and advanced one runner to third base and another to second.
Slocum allowed one hit while striking out three batters and walking two during four innings of work. Kyle Hamilton had two singles and three RBIs, Brady Clark and Slocum each had two singles and one RBI and Drew Martin had two singles. Corner outfielders Jacob Dwinell and Ryan Pepe were defensive standouts, speaking to Post 84’s improved depth from a year ago.
“Other teams with better records are going to look at us as a young team in a transition year, but we’re just going to go have fun,” said O’Hara, whose team will open tournament play against the host Colchester Cannons (22-2), the North Division’s top team. “All year we’ve had a bend and don’t break attitude because we have so many guys who hadn’t played at this level.
“We’re going to make mistakes, we just have to try and minimize them.”
Notes: Slocum began the game wearing uniform pants with a huge rip on one hip, but was made to exchange trousers with a reserve teammate by the home plate umpire. … Martin couldn’t corral a foul pop-up at one point and when O’Hara asked why he hadn’t whipped off his mask before the pursuit, told his coach that if he’d done so, his long, red hair would have gotten in his eyes. … Randolph High’s field features no fences in center and left, allowing the Post 9 outfielders to park themselves deep in the grass when visiting power hitters arrived at the plate.
Tris Wykes can be reached at twykes@vnews.com.