Rochester Post 7 had a pretty sweet run last decade, winning five Senior Legion state baseball titles over a six-year span, including four in a row. It’s the greatest run since Sweeney Post of Manchester won six straight (1977 to 1982).
Editor’s Note: This is the 12th in an ongoing series on significant local sporting moments and events from the past decade.
Rochester Post 7 had a pretty sweet run last decade, winning five Senior Legion state baseball titles over a six-year span, including four in a row. It’s the greatest run since Sweeney Post of Manchester won six straight (1977 to 1982).
It easily could not have been.
Post 7 needed some extraordinary things to happen in three of those tournaments to come out on top. It came down to great pitching, timely hitting and ... well, a little bit of luck.
During that six-year stretch, Post 7 went 116-30 with a state tournament record of 24-4 and a regional mark of 8-10.
The 2013 squad kick-started the surge, winning the program’s first title since 1990.
“We had a pretty experienced team during that run,” said Luke Roberts, the team’s shortstop and No. 2 hitter in the lineup. In addition, many had played together growing up — Roberts, Alex Gray, Mark Leahy, Zach Poisson, Zach Miller, Michael Bellio and Matt Paradis.
The difference, according to manager BJ Gagnon, was Ricky Kramer. A resident of Strafford who attended Berwick Academy, Kramer was convinced to pitch for Rochester that summer.
“He really gave us a legitimate No. 1,” Gagnon said.
As Gagnon noted, “That was a tough tournament to win. There were a lot of teams that could have won that tournament.”
After winning their first game over Laconia, 5-3, behind Kramer, Post 7 lost to Nashua, 4-2, on a Sunday. It came back later that day to beat Londonderry, 4-2, then came back on Monday to edge Lebanon, 4-3, and qualify for the final day of the tournament.
Post 7 had to win two games to win the title.
Despite surrendering a lead-off homer, Kramer won the first game against Laconia, 6-3. He was named the tournament’s most outstanding pitcher after winning two games and saving a third.
That set the stage for a winner-take-all battle against Nashua. Out of pitching, Gagnon started Roberts, his shortstop, who had seen spot duty in relief, but had never started a Legion game.
“We knew he could throw the ball over the plate,” Gagnon said.
Roberts did more than throw the ball over the plate. He no-hit Nashua through four innings, and had a one-hitter after six. He tired in the seventh with Post 7 up 4-0, and Nashua finally broke through to cut the lead to 4-3.
“I think BJ’s coolness and conviction naming me the starter in a moment like that gave me all the confidence I needed to go out there and perform,” said Roberts, who recently graduated from med school at the University of West Virginia and is currently doing his residency in obstetrics and gynecology at Maine Medical Center in Portland.
In the eighth inning, Post 7 reliever Zach Poisson found himself in a jam with runners on first and second and one out. Furthermore, he was unhappy about a pitch called a ball that made the count 3-0.
Gagnon came out, told Poisson to calm down, throw a strike and then serve up a double-play grounder.
Poisson delivered, tossing a strike and then getting a double-play liner to second baseman Bellio, who threw to Roberts at the bag to end the inning.
“Zach, we used him the maximum in that tournament,” said Gagnon, who used his bullpen ace in the team’s final four tournament games. “He was a bulldog. He wanted the baseball and that was huge.”
Rochester built its 4-0 lead on a sac fly by Tournament MVP Alex Gray that scored Roberts (3 for 4, run) in the first inning, followed later by RBI singles by Bellio, Mac Struthers and Miller.
Rochester went 16-2 the following year, but fizzled in the tournament, going 1-2.
In 2015, Post 7 did it again. It still had five holdovers from 2013 — Struthers, Anthony DiPrizio, Justin Jewell, Josh Gagne and Loukas Brigham.
A portion of that team helped Spaulding High School win the 2015 Division I state championship, its first in 31 years.
Like 2013, Post 7 had a huge pitcher out of the bullpen. This time it was Chris States, who originally didn’t want to play but was fortunately convinced to do so. He had a hand in three of Post 7’s four wins, going 2-0 with a save. He tossed nine shutout innings. Surprisingly he was not selected as Tournament MVP.
After Gagne tossed a masterful complete game in the opening 2-0 win over Milford, Post 7 stayed alive in the winner’s bracket with a wild, come-from-behind, 11-10 win over Londonderry in 10 innings.
Post 7 trailed 10-3 after seven innings, but rallied in the eighth with seven runs to tie the game on four hits, five walks and a hit batter.
In the bottom of 10th, Ben Gravel walked, went to second on a passed ball and then third on a ground out. Londonderry pulled in its infield and outfield with one out and DiPrizio up.
He delivered the game-winning hit over the fielder’s head in right field.
“We had worked so hard with him going the other way,” said Gagnon, who managed the team from 2008 to 2015. “He swung so hard that everybody worked him away. He did it on that particular pitch. That was a well-struck ball. That was fun to watch — a hands-up-in-the-air thing right away.”
It was smoother sailing the rest of the way. Post 7 stopped Exeter, 6-4, with States saving the win for lefty Andrew Barnes.
In the final, also against Exeter, Rochester made sure it was one game and one game only, coming from behind to claim a 5-3 win. Jewell had four hits to lead the offense with a pair of RBIs.
Post 7 led 2-1 when Gagne left the game with two on and no out in the seventh. Exeter scored two runs to go ahead, 3-2, but also had two runners thrown out at the plate by Gravel and Rick Creteau.
Creteau made a fully extended diving catch to end the game to secure the championship on a ball hit by current Boston College star Cody Morissette with a runner on base.
States, who was not as brilliant as he had been earlier in the tournament, picked up the win.
“He was just very cool, calm and collected,” Gagnon said of States. “There wasn’t a situation that wasn’t too big for him.”
In the postseason over two years, States was 4-0 with a pair of saves.
As wild as 2015 was, it couldn’t match 2016, which was also played at Nashua’s historic Holman Stadium.
Post 7 won again, doing it the hard way through the brutal losers bracket — a losers bracket that required Rochester to win five games in three days, including four over the final two.
After winning their first game over Lebanon, 11-3, on a Friday, Post 7 fell to Milford, 6-2.
Rochester got it going the following night with a unimpressive 7-4, elimination-win over Sweeney.
Then the players rolled up their sleeves to begin the real work.
On Monday, Post 7 had to play and win two games to stay alive. It got two excellent pitching efforts. Gagne shut out Merrimack in the first game, 4-0; while States, making just his second start of the year (the first was an early-season disaster against Exeter), muzzled Milford, 9-1.
Rochester was into the final day, but now had to beat Exeter twice for the championship with its pitching staff operating on fumes.
Game 1 was a coming-out-party for Shaun Cormier, who frustrated Exeter to the tune of a 3-1 win. Lambert said that Cormier was double rostered, spending most of the season with the Junior Legion team before getting the late-season call up to make the run with the Senior squad, primarily as a position player in the outfield.
“We punched them in the mouth and they didn’t know what to do,” said Post 7 manager Steve Lambert, who took over for Gagnon in 2016. “They came in there and thought they were going to beat us that first game.”
Lambert said that Exeter team was one of the best teams he’d ever seen with something like six Division I college commits. “We had none,” he said, other than Jewell, who played one year at the University of Rhode Island. “We were more of a blue collar team with a lunch box. We made it work.”
Christian Dow, who won the Sunday game over Sweeney, came back to pitch the deciding game. He was aided by plenty of offense as the Post 7 bats came alive to batter Exeter in seven innings, 11-1, to win the title for the third time in four years.
“That was the craziest by far,” Creteau said. “But it was also the toughest one. That was the best year — 2016.”
And maybe the best team.
“That was probably the most talented, all-around team I’ve ever coached,” Lambert said.
It was also a team, like 2015, that started the most Rochester players. The only full-time non-Rochester starter was Struthers at shortstop, a product of Coe-Brown Northwood Academy.
“The main thing was they had played since they were 9 and 10 all the way up through,” Lambert said. “I still to this day don’t know how we managed to beat Exeter in those final two games. I have no idea.”
The 2016 Post 7 team also went the furthest in the regional tournament than any other. Rochester went 3-2 to make it to the final day of the tournament to take third place.
Rochester won at least one game in the five regionals it went to. The 2015 squad went 2-2.
In contrast to the previous three championships, the final two in 2017 and 2018 were cakewalks as the talent level was not as strong across the board as it had been during their three previous wins. Both were won at Manchester’s Gill Stadium where Post 7 went 8-0 over the two tournaments.
“You still got to play,” Lambert said. “You still got to win.”
Rochester did that.
The pitching rules were changed in 2017 to include pitch counts, so that required a little more strategy. Post 7 gambled both years in the first game with its ace, Cormier, pulling him short of a pitch count threshold to make sure he was available if they made the championship.
In 2017, Rochester beat up on teams. It won its first three games via the 10-run mercy rule over Laconia, Lebanon and Concord. In the championship, it nearly mercy-ruled Sweeney, settling for an 11-3 victory.
In four tournament games, Post 7 outscored the opposition 47-9.
“One through nine we were extremely strong,” said shortstop Keagan Calero, who was named Tournament MVP in 2017 and 2018. “Same thing next year. There was really no weak hitter in the order.”
It was similar during Post 7’s run in 2018. At that point, tournament games were reduced in length from nine to seven innings, which lessened the stress on a pitching staff.
In the opener, Cormier and Brody Ashley combined for a shutout win over Laconia, 3-0. From there, Post 7 cruised past Derry, 11-4, and Lebanon, 8-3, to make the final against Merrimack. Cormier tossed a complete-game shutout, 6-0.
Cormier had a monster tournament, winning two games without allowing a run while collecting five hits and knocking in a team-high five runs. In three state tournaments, his pitching record was 5-0.
The 2017 and 2018 teams had less of a Rochester/Spaulding feel with more out-of-town players.
Players from other communities played a role in all five championships, but more so over the final two titles. Supplying key roles in those two runs were former Coe-Brown star Ashley, Prospect Mountain’s Drew Nickerson and Kingswood’s Brian Lindsay.
Post 7’s run ended in 2019. It made the state tournament in Nashua, but went 1-2 as Nashua went on to claim the title over Exeter.
It’s tough to say if what Rochester accomplished will ever be replicated. The Legion landscape is changing, and not necessarily for the better. More and more players are forsaking their local Legion teams for travel/AAU programs.
Rochester is no exception. With more out-of-town players making up the roster, the number of Rochester residents participating with the Legion program has sadly diminished. This year, had there been a Legion season, Business Manager Craig Walfield said Rochester Post 7 was not in a position to sponsor the team.
The number of Senior Legion teams across the state has shrunk from 22 in 2010 to 14 in 2020, a drop of 36%.
No matter, memories of Post 7’s glorious run remains — a lasting testament to a city that loves its baseball.
“Winning that title (in 2013) felt like a storybook ending for a lot of that team,” Roberts said. “Little did we know that BJ was only getting Post 7 started that decade.”
NOTES: During that run, a handful of players played on three championship teams. The first wave included DiPrizio, Gagne, Jewell and Struthers on the 2013, 2015 and 2016 squads; Creteau, Dow and Logan Larochelle came next in 2015, 2016 and 2017, and Cormier was the final entry on the 2016, 2017 and 2018 teams.
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