Rochester Post 7 beats Exeter Post 32 twice to complete incredible run to American Legion title

NASHUA – Steve Lambert thought he was going to have a big problem heading into Tuesday.

Playing potentially four games in two days, and seven games in five, Lambert worried that the Rochester Post 7 baseball team might run out of pitching before completing its unlikely quest of winning a second straight American Legion state title.

The pitching turned out to be no problem at all.

A day after getting two complete games to advance to Tuesday’s championship, Rochester got two more solid games on the mound, as Post 7 took a 3-1 win over Exeter in the first game, and crushed Post 32 in a 12-2 seven-inning, mercy-rule game in the second at Holman Stadium.

The wins make Rochester the first time since Jutras Post 43 in 1996-97 to win back to back titles, and Post 7 also matched Post 43’s run of three titles in four years.

“The pitching was tremendous, superb, whatever (adjective) you want to use,” Lambert said. “How can you explain it? It’s just incredible. Never in any dream would I have envisioned what we did here. Ever.”

Sean Cormier, who was used as a reliever for most of the season, got the win in the first game by pitching seven-plus innings and allowing one run on six hits and a walk.

After pitching six innings in Sunday’s win over Sweeney Post 2, Christian Dow pitched another 5 1/3 innings in Game 2, allowing one run on six hits and two walks.

In two days, Rochester pitchers threw 34 innings, striking out 23 batters while allowing four runs on 21 hits and eight walks.

“Rochester is a tough team and to beat the champs, you’ve got to be better than them,” Tim Mitropoulos said. “They hit the ball harder than we did, they pitched better than we did, that’s what it is.”

Rochester catcher Anthony DiPrizio was named the tournament’s most valuable player, as he caught all 34 innings over the final two days of the tournament. During that four-game stretch, he was 5 for 14 and walked five times, scoring seven runs and driving in another.

“I’m pretty tired, I’m pretty sore, but the feeling of winning makes it all better,” DiPrizio said. “The heart this team has is unlike any other team I’ve been on. We don’t want to stop playing with each other. We know this is our last shot, our last game ever, and we just didn’t want it to end. Everybody dug deep and got the job done.”

After getting out to early leads against Merrimack and Milford on Monday, it took Rochester until the third inning to get on the board in the first game against Exeter.

Dow led off the top of the inning with a double and went to third on a sacrifice by Cormier. Rick Creteau followed with a groundball to second and Post 32 traded the run for the out.

It was still 1-0 in the seventh when Ben Gravel drove a ball deep to left that appeared to clear the short, brick wall in left field and bounce back onto the field. But the umpires ruled the ball hit the wall and came back and Exeter’s Cody Morissette struck out Dow and Cormier to strand Gravel at second.

Rochester added to the lead with two unearned runs in the eighth, as an error kept the inning alive for Drew Healy to drive in DiPrizio and Josh Gagne with a single, making it 3-0.

Exeter got a run back in the bottom of the inning, as Kyle Ball led off with a walk that ended Cormier’s day on the mound and Collin Shapiro followed with a double off Mark Levesque.

Morissette was able to advance the runners and Jack Arend drove in Ball with an RBI groundout, but Levesque got Jared Brescia to ground out to end the inning. Exeter went in order in the ninth to end the game.

“We felt good about ourselves coming in and we said if we can keep them to four or five runs in the first game, we’d have a good shot,” Lambert said. “Obviously, we only scored three, but they only scored one.

Coming into the second game, we felt real good. We felt real good with Christian Dow on the mound, and then we had (Chris) States coming in, and we were going to finish with (Josh) Gagne. We were really in better shape than it really showed because those guys had innings left. We just needed to get a lead and feel comfortable.”

The first three Post 7 batters reached base in the bottom of the first against Exeter’s Mike Strabone, as Creteau singled and scored on a triple by DiPrizio. Justin Jewell (5 for 5, three RBIs in the second game) followed with a double to make it 2-0.

“We got the momentum going, and it was unreal for us,” DiPrizio said. “That was a big key in our victory. They started to make mistakes and what really helped was that we capitalized. We didn’t make any of our own, and that could be the difference.”

The mistakes started coming in the bottom of the third, when Rochester loaded the bases with no one out. Strabone got Healy to hit a groundball to second, but Morissette’s throw home was high and popped out of Arend’s glove, allowing DiPrizio to score to make it 3-0.

Mac Struthers followed by hitting into a fielder’s choice, as Exeter this time got the force out at home, and Strabone got Gravel to pop up for the second out. But Dow followed with an RBI single to make it 4-0 and chase Strabone.

Connor Singh got Cormier to hit a groundball to Ball at short, but his flip to Morissette at second was dropped, allowing Healy to score. Creteau drove in another run with a single and Rochester led 6-0 before the inning was over.

Post 7 added another unearned run in the fifth to make it 7-0, and after Exeter scored twice in the sixth, Rochester got one back to go up 8-2.

Rochester ended the game with four runs in the bottom of the seventh, with an RBI single by Struthers giving Post 7 the 10-run advantage to end the game.

For the third time in four years, Rochester advances to the Northeast Region 1 Tournament, which is scheduled to begin Aug. 3 at Muzzy Field in Bristol, Conn. Four players – DiPrizio, Jewell, Gagne and Struthers – have been a part of all three teams.

“It’s just a great experience to go to Bristol and play on that field,” DiPrizio said. “We’re living the dream. We’ve got nothing to worry about other than having fun.”