North Adams American Legion Juniors Roll Past Belchertown
Maddux Cooke went 3-for-4 and scored four times for North Adams, which needed just five innings to earn its fourth straight win and improve to 5-2 this summer.
Combined with a 17-6 win over Westfield five days earlier, Sunday’s win gave Post 125 38 runs in its last two games after scoring 15 in its first five outings.
“The boys are playing really well,” North Adams coach Stephen Rotter said. “We came into this game in third place in the [Western Mass] league, and we split with the first place and second place teams. So the boys were having a lot of confidence.
“They came into this game thinking, ‘All right. We can hang with everybody.’ We weren’t sure what we’d see the first time playing Belchertown.”
And Post 125 could see a different Belchertown team when it makes a trip to the Pioneer Valley for a double-header against B-Town on July 12. Just nine Belchertown players made the trip west for Sunday’s game.
“It’s been a tough season,” Rotter said. “We’ve been in the same position. We traveled down to Springfield with nine guys for a double-header [against Wilbraham].”
A more fully loaded North Adams squad Sunday was able to get four pinch-hitters into the game and use three pitchers to get through the afternoon.
The hosts took the lead for good in the bottom of the first inning.
Everett Bayliss drew a leadoff walk, stole second, moved up on a wild pitch and scored on Meaney’s RBI groundout.
Emery Rotter then reached on an outfield error and eventually scored on Carson Dix’s RBI groundout. Then Lucas Hamilton singled, stole second and scored on Jake McAllister’s RBI single to right to make it 3-0.
Belchertown scored twice in the top of the second, but after Post 125 starter Mason Fierro gave up a bases loaded walk with no out, Stephen Rotter opted to bring Hamilton to the mound.
He got the next hitter to pop up to third base and then retired the side on a 4-6-3 double play: Jack Marlowe to Rotter to McAllister.
North Adams rode the momentum of that big defensive play into the bottom of the inning, scoring 10 runs to take control of the game.
After Cooke was hit by a pitch, Marlowe, Bayliss, Meaney, Rotter, Dix and Hamilton hit six straight singles, the last driving in Dix to make it 9-2.
It was 13-2 before Belchertown got out of the inning.
Post 125 tacked on a run without a base hit in the third and then batted around again in the fourth. This time, Dix had the big blow, a two-run double that made it 18-2 before Belchertown could get an out.
It was 24-2 to start the fifth, when North Adams turned to Michael Hartman to close things out.
He gave up three hits but struck out the other three batters he faced to get out of the inning.
Each of the three Post 125 pitchers was able to take something positive away from the game.
Fierro allowed just one base runner in the first before running into some control issues with two walks and two hit batters in the second. Hamilton gave up just one hit and no walks in two innings of work. And Hartman registered three punchouts, including two straight to end the game.
“With this group, we’re really fortunate that a lot of them have a really good fundamental skill set,” Stephen Rotter said. “So we’re actually really able to plug and play quite a bit. So when pitchers do struggle, we can get somebody in there and take it to the next batter.”
The Post 125 Juniors are off until when they travel to face West Springfield Post 207.
