Vermont H.S. baseball: CVU overpowers Mount Anthony for third title in four years

The Champlain Valley Union High School baseball team returned some three innings to its rotation this spring.

Graduation losses marked first-year coach Nicky Elderton’s introduction as a new batch of arms awaited the state’s premier club over the last decade. Quickly the tandem of Stephen Rickert and Chris Robinson racked up innings and strikeouts at an alarming rate.

The pair led Champlain Valley through a blip mid-season and into the Division I playoffs as the top seed. And as the two went, the Redhawks breezed through the postseason, leading CVU (16-2) to a third championship win in the last four seasons.

Rickert spun a complete-game, one-hitter with five strikeouts, trumping No. 3 Mount Anthony (17-4) 6-0 at Centennial Field on Saturday afternoon. The triumph, that lasted just over a brisk hour and 20 minutes, marked the Redhawks’ sixth overall coronation and fifth since 2012.

“I have all the trust in the world in him,” Rickert’s battery mate, Calvin Steele said. “I just sit there and I was in my primary stance most of the game, not having to worry about anything just catching the ball.”

Rickert, who allowed just one walk over 84 pitches, carried a no-hitter through five innings as the Redhawks plated six runs in the first two innings to chase Mount Anthony starter Colby Granger. CVU outscored opponents 14-0 through the first two innings of its three playoff games.

“That was kind of our approach going in,” Elderton said of scoring early. “You wish that you could have done that for seven innings, but that's baseball. … Just to have that lead and knowing that we have Rickert on the mound, who was just going to hit his spots and deal, it’s a little more comforting.”

Related: Vermont H.S. spring championship roundup

Rickert, who waited for his chance to climb Centennial’s hallowed mound, retired the last Patriots’ hitter with a line out to right field.

“That last out was insane,” said the junior, who threw a five-inning, complete-game in the quarterfinals. “He hit it and I knew my fielders are right there, always there for me, it just felt amazing to finally get it done.

“The last two years we had Ollie Pudvar in front of me, I was just kind of looking to kind of try and fill his shoes as best I could when I came up and I think we did all right.”

After Robbie Fragola, Travis Stroh and Zach Santos strung together three straight singles in the first inning to take a 2-0 lead, Stroh, the three-hole hitter, came to bat with two runners on in the second and smacked a 340-foot home run to clear the left field wall with ease for a 6-0 advantage.

“I didn't know at first,” Stroh said of the towering home run. “I hit it and then I was rounding first and I saw it go over and it was probably the best feeling I've ever had.”

Granger, who picked up the loss with six earned runs on six hits, was relieved by Connor Hannan in the third inning. Hannan quieted the CVU bats allowing just one hit over the next four innings.

“The program's back, it's been a long drought of 12 years without even getting close,” MAU coach Trevor Coyne said of the title appearance.

The Patriots last title win, a 2011 triumph against Rice, came against Elderton when he suited up for the South Burlington program.

“He kind of told us what to expect a little bit from playing on this big of a stage but we kind of wanted to get that one for him,” Rickert said of winning the title for their first-year coach.

With the championship in hand, CVU became just the second school to sweep the D-I football, basketball and baseball titles in the same school year after the former won breakthrough crowns in the fall and winter. Essex also accomplished the feat during the 2009-10 school year.

Stroh went 2-for-3 with four RBIs, a home run and a double to pace the Redhawks at the dish. Fragola was 1-for-2 with two runs, while Santos, Steele, Kyle Tivnan and Lewis Kerest all recorded a hit to round out the Redhawks’ seven knocks in the contest.

“This whole season we just bonded from the start,” Stroh said. “And we've all been around each other for so long it just felt like this was a team from the start. We had our ups and downs, those two losses that we had in the middle of our season, I think those really brought us back up and after that we just played some of the best baseball we ever had.”

CVU’s two losses came in back-to-back games against semifinal teams, South Burlington and Mount Mansfield, in mid-May. The losses didn’t deter the young group.

“You learn from your mistakes, and that's baseball, whether you win or you lose,” Elderton said of the losses. “But it just shows how tight-knit this group is and how resilient they are, I wouldn't have wanted to coach any other team for my first year.”

Granger recorded the Patriots’ lone hit, a single to the left side to deny Rickert the no-hitter.

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Contact Jacob Rousseau at JRousseau@gannett.com. Follow on Twitter: @ByJacobRousseau.

This article originally appeared on Burlington Free Press: VT H.S. baseball: CVU overpowers MAU for third title in four years