BBC CHAMPS … The Montpelier Locomotives wrapped up a third straight league title with an 11-1 win over North Central.
By: Nate Calvin
The only thing that has been able to interrupt the dominance of Montpelier baseball in the BBC has been the COVID-19 pandemic.\
After winning league titles in 2018 and 2019 followed by the cancellation of the 2020 season, the Locomotives picked up where they left off and wrapped up another BBC championship after an 11-1 win over North Central in five innings on Friday night.
After taking a 1-0 lead in the first inning on an RBI single by Loco pitcher Blake Altaffer, Montpelier began to pull away in their second at bat.
Easten Richmond started the inning by reaching base on a dropped third strike and then advanced to second on an error by Eagles pitcher Zack Hayes.
Collin Crisenbery then laced his second double of the game to score Richmond and make it 2-0. Crisenbery would then steal third and score on an error by the catcher to increase their lead to 3-0 before Tylor Yahraus doubled to left
Yahraus plated the final run of the inning for the Locos as he stole third and then scored on another North Central (10-10, 7-3 in BBC) error to make it 4-0.
Altaffer struck out the side in the top of the third and Montpelier added three more runs in the bottom of the frame.
The Locos used a single, error, and walk to load the bases with two outs and then Crisenbery singled to left to drive in a pair of runs to make it 6-0. Yahraus would follow Crisenbery with an RBI single to left of his own to push the lead to 7-0.
North Central found some success in the top of the fifth against Altaffer with a walk by Ben Turner who would eventually score on a groundout by Sam Wheeler after consecutive singles from Keanu Miller and Cohen Meyers to get the Eagles on the board.
Montpelier (15-5, 10-0) would then end the game in the bottom of the inning starting with a single from Crisenberry and then back-to-back triples by Yahraus and Altaffer to build the lead to 9-1.
Altaffer would score on a wild pitch and Jaxon Richmond singled and later scored on a wild pitch to end the game after working his way to third.
Crisenberry finished the night 4-4 at the plate with three RBIs and scored three runs while Yahraus had three hits, three RBIs and Altaffer had two hits and two RBIs. Altaffer dominated on the mound for Montpelier allowing just two hits while recording 13 strikeouts.
SCORE BY INNINGS R H E
North Central 000 01X X 1 2 4
Montpelier 133 04X X 11 14 0
Nate can be reached at publisher@thevillagereporter.com