With two outs and runners on first and third in the top of the sixth inning, Will Eaton stepped to the plate, his team trailing by one run in the Division I high school baseball championship.
“Just going into it, I’m just trying to take a breath,” Eaton said. “Definitely the biggest moment of my life.”
The senior delivered. And so did his teammates.
Eaton’s bloop single to center leveled the contest while Adrian Mitchell hustled home for the go-ahead run following a throwing error on the same play, and No. 3 St. Johnsbury survived rally after rally to claim a 9-7 thriller over No. 1 Mount Anthony at Centennial Field on Friday night.
The Hilltoppers (16-3) captured their first title since 2016 in a contest that featured four lead changes, three of them in consecutive innings in the fourth, fifth and sixth frames.
Carson Finn earned the win in relief, going three innings and yielding two hits and one run, while also doubling at the plate in a 3-for-3 performance. Connor Decker doubled and tripled to drive in three runs for the Hilltoppers.
“It’s just a mix of emotions, it feels awesome,” St. Johnsbury coach Chris Kendall said. “I’m super-proud of the kids, they really stepped it up.”
MAU’s Jacoby Dicranian (2-for-3, three RBIs) had a sac fly and an RBI single and Sean Moriarty (2-for-4) launched a homer deep to left field to stake the southern power to a 3-0 lead through three innings.
But SJA responded to the deficit.
Eaton opened the fourth with a single. Cage Thompson walked with one out. Then Finn’s fly ball to right field was lost in the lights, dropping for a single and loading the bases. Carter Bunnell walked to plate a run and Connor Decker followed with a bases-clearing double down the first-base line on an 0-2 pitch to give SJA a 4-3 edge.
“All of us knew in our heads that we were definitely going to be able to come back,” Eaton said. “We are a comeback team.”
SJA added another run in its next at-bat on a wild pitch for a 5-3 advantage. In the bottom of the fifth, MAU regained the lead. Hunter Sherwin earned his third walk in as many at-bats, and Dicranian drove him in on a single. Later in the frame, Talin Bartholdi had an RBI single to knot the game at 5 and Jonathan Crossman lifted a fly ball to center to scratch out a 6-5 lead through five full innings.
Again, SJA had an answer.
Decker opened the sixth by serving a triple over the right fielder’s head. After back-to-back strikeouts, Mitchell walked to set up Eaton’s big hit. Eaton later scored on a passed ball for a 8-6 margin.
After rallying past Essex in the quarterfinals and knocking off defending champion South Burlington on the road in the semifinals, the Hilltoppers had the confidence to climb to the top of Division I this spring. The Northeast Kingdom program also overcame a late-season, three-game slide to finish on a five-game winning streak.
“Just sticking with it and going for the win the whole time,” Eaton said.
Contact Alex Abrami at aabrami@freepressmedia.com. Follow him on X, formerly known as Twitter:@aabrami5.
This article originally appeared on Burlington Free Press: Vermont high school baseball final: St. Johnsbury tops Mount Anthony