By: Brennan McGrevy 

Montpelier, VT - The Valley Blue Sox had a great night at the plate against the Vermont Mountaineers. Valley’s designated hitter, Sebastian Mexico, had himself yet another great game. Mexico went two for four with one RBI, a walk and had himself a nice home run. He is third in the entire New England Collegiate Baseball League with an impressive batting average of .389 and has three home runs on the year. 

Blue Sox First baseman Gavin Schrader also had himself a great game going three for five at the plate with two RBIs. 

Vermont started the game off strong, scoring two runs in the bottom of the first thanks to Mountaineers designated hitter Griffin Brown’s sac-fly to score right fielder Sam Gates. The second run scored from Conlan Daniel’s stealing home on a wild pitch thrown by Ethan Slowik. 

The Blue Sox got the bats rolling to answer in the top of the second thanks to catcher Cade Carr crushing a home run to make it 2-1. Valley was able to score in the top of the third again thanks to third baseman Mike O’Conor’s triple and Schrader’s single to drive O’Conor in to tie it all up at 2-2. 

Mountaineers’ shortstop Thomas Schreck gave Vermont the lead back 3-2 in the bottom of the fourth by stealing home on a wild pickoff attempt to first base from Blue Sox’s pitcher Jake Andrews. 

Valley’s right fielder Clay Burdette was hit by a pitch with two outs in the top of the fifth inning. O’Conor stepped up to the plate and doubled off the center field fence and the speedy right fielder for the Blue Sox scored to tie the game at three apiece. 

Designated hitter Mexico saw the perfect pitch in the top of the seventh inning and crushed his third home run of the year to give the Valley a 4-3 lead. Second baseman Michael Elko and Burdette walked as the momentum started to shift drastically. Elko seized his opportunity to score by stealing second, third and home. O’Conor got on base due to a throwing error made by the Mountaineers. Schrader came back up to the plate locked in to hit a single to score Burdette to make it 6-3. 

Left fielder Mike Lucarelli hit a nice single to load the bases backup for the Blue Sox. Shortstop Kai Cunningham walked with the bases loaded to score O’Conor. Schrader then scored on a wild pitch to make it 8-3. Mexico then walked for Valley to load the bases again. Elko came back up to the plate and walked to make it 9-3. Burdette crushed a ball into the outfield to make it 11-3 but Elko got tagged out trying to get to home base to end the offenses’ explosive inning. The Blue Sox scored eight runs in the top of the seventh inning to shift the tide of the game. 

A new pitcher for Valley came into the game to start in the bottom of the seventh, Jack Niedringhaus, and he only allowed one run in the inning to keep it 11-4. 

The eighth inning did not see any scoring changes as both defenses played efficiently well. 

In the top of the ninth Chris Walsh was able to score for Valley to make it 12-4 to end the half inning. Andrew Jergins started in the bottom of the ninth inning for the Blue Sox and closed the game out by allowing no runs in the last inning. The final score was 12-4 in favor of Valley.

The Blue Sox will look to carry their two game winning streak momentum into tomorrow night’s game, at home against the Mystic Schooners, in search of another victory.