UTICA — With a doubleheader sweep at Murnane Field Friday, the Junior Blue Sox claimed their first senior division championship in District V American Legion baseball play.
The fifth-year Legion program defeated New Hartford Post 1376 11-9 and 7-4 in the first two games of a best-of-three championship series and earned a spot in the state tournament in Rochester.
The Blue Sox won junior division regional and state titles in 2024 with much the same roster.
“We’ve got a bunch of guys who’ve been here for five years,” Blue Sox coach Jack Bono said. “We’ve got the same core of kids which is pretty cool.”
Playing as the home team in Game 2 after winning Game 1 as the lower seed and away team, the Blue Sox fell behind early. A series of walks and an injury to starting pitcher Logan Pullman helped New Hartford Post take a quick 3-0 lead. Brayden Wisheart relieved Pullman and ended the inning by inducing a double play grounder with the bases loaded.
Wisheart wound up pitching the final 6 2/3 innings and limited New Hartford Post to a single run in the third inning.
“We lost our starter about 15 pitches in, and (Wisheart) really stepped up,” Bono said.
The Blue Sox countered New Hartford Post’s fast start with two runs in the bottom of the first inning and took their first lead with a two-run single by Jake Cenname in the second.
New Hartford Post tied the game at 4 with its run in the third but the Blue Sox came back with a run in the bottom of the inning and regained the lead. Jakob Ortiz added an RBI-double in the fifth inning, and Anthony Marino walked, stole a base, advanced on an overthrow and tagged up to score on Cenname’s fly ball in the sixth.
Nate Pcola had three of the seven Blue Sox hots and scored the go-ahead run. Ortiz had two hits and drove in two runs.
Ashton Palmer, the starting pitcher for New Hartford, had three hits and a walk in four plate appearances, and drove in a run. Mason Corlis added two hits and two walks.
The Blue Sox had taken an 8-0 lead early in Friday’s first game before New Hartford scored seven times in the bottom of the third inning. The Blue Sox added two runs in the fifth and never surrendered the lead. Cenname drove in four runs and scored two, while Marino scored three times. All nine players in the Blue Sox lineup had at least one hit. Corlis and Michael Pilla each had three hits for New Hartford Post.
Friday’s wins were the fourth and fifth in a row for the Blue Sox who had lost two three previous games against New Hartford Post, the top team in the regular season District V standings.
The championship series matchup was set Tuesday when the Blue Sox beat defending champion Smith Post 24 9-1 and New Hartford was a 6-3 winner over Utica Post 229.
New Hartford finished atop the six-team regular season standings with an 11-4 record. The Blue Sox, and Smith and Utica posts each won nine games.
“We definitely turned things around this year,” Bono said. “We started slow and we’re playing better at the right time.”
The eight-team, double-elimination 2026 state tournament games will be played at Penfield High School starting with four on July 25. Tournament host Greece Post 468 will put on an opening tournament banquet the night before that, and the championship game is scheduled for July 29.
The state champion advances to the Northeast Regional tournament in Shrewsbury, Massachusetts, and the national tournament, the American Legion Baseball World Series, follows in Shelby, North Carolina.
This article originally appeared on Times Telegram: Junior Blue Sox win first senior Legion championship
Reporting by Jon Rathbun, Herkimer Times Telegram / Times Telegram
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Jon Rathbun, Herkimer Times Telegram | USA TODAY Network
