WILBRAHAM — The Belchertown Post 239 Senior American Legion baseball team saw it’s season come to a close following its 10-5 loss to North County Post 129 at Matt Farrell Memorial Field on Monday.
Post 239’s defeat was its second of the double-elimination Regional Tournament and second in three days to North County, who edged Belchertown 3-0 on Saturday.
A 4-2 score favored Post 239 after two innings on Monday, however the eventual winners proceeded to score eight of the game’s final nine runs—including four in top of the sixth—on 15 hits altogether. All nine North County batters registered at least one hit while Johnny Losado led all players with a perfect, 4-for-4 stat-line from the plate.
“Baseball is a beautiful game and it doesn’t always go your way,” Belchertown head coach Todd McDonald said. “That’s part of what makes it so great. There’s no clock in baseball so you got to play the innings, you got to get the outs and we just didn’t get enough runs in the end.”
Post 239 surpassed double figures in its total hits in Monday’s contest with 11, but committed four fielding errors, which gave North County extra scoring opportunities across multiple frames.
“It happens, it’s unfortunate,” McDonald said on the fielding miscues. “You got to come through perfectly clean to win a game sometimes and one throw, one bounce, can change everything.”
Thatcher Rudnik and Chace Earle (two RBIs) each went 3-for-4 with the twigs for Belchertown and Jacob Smith cracked its only extra-base hit (double) of the afternoon. Josh Misiaszek also provided multiple hits for Post 239, concluding the bout 2-for-4.
Logan Cormier nearly went the distance on the mound for North County, tossing 6.2 innings before Will Gage retired the game’s final batter with a groundout. Cormier collected six strikeouts and two walks, plus surrendered 11 hits and five runs (four earned) before having to be removed due to pitch-count restrictions.
“I thought we hit the ball pretty hard, even our outs were pretty loud,” McDonald said. “[Cormier] threw the ball very well, but I was proud of our approach at the plate. I thought we were pretty aggressive. Two games ago when we faced them, I thought they controlled the at-bats more so, but early on, I thought we hit the ball hard.”
Belchertown’s starter, Jake Waller, took the loss despite a similar stat-line to Cormier. In four innings, Waller gave up seven hits, five runs (four earned) and walked four and struck out one. Canyon Charron threw the last three innings and conceded eight hits for five runs (one earned) with two Ks.
Monday’s loss pushed Post 239’s final 2025 record to 13-3 and although it wasn’t able to complete the three-peat as district champions, McDonald expressed great joy in coaching this summer’s group.
“We have a lot to be proud of,” McDonald said. “There was some good games that we played during the season that we were able to come out with a victory. When you get in tournament play, everything just changes. Everybody can be a little bit tighter, and know that every pitch, every hit matters.
“We didn’t talk about today,” McDonald added regarding his postgame message. “Because it doesn’t matter, the season’s over, the game is over. It’s more about the entire experience that meant a lot to me.”
Belchertown 5, Northampton 0 — Post 239 exacted revenge on the only team it fell to during the regular season as Belchertown ended Post 28’s season on Sunday with the shutout victory.
Northampton previously downed Belchertown, 6-1, June 13, however Post 239 came out on top during Sunday’s regional tournament elimination game.
Belchertown’s bottom of the batting order stepped up against its Hampshire County counterpart as hitters five through nine all tallied RBIs. Post 239’s Canyon Charron highlighted the bunch with one hit, two runs scored and an RBI in three at-bats.
Josh Misiaszek threw a complete-game, three-hitter for Belchertown, striking out two Northampton batters while walking five for the clean sheet.
Post 239 led, 2-0, following three innings of play, then plated three runs during the bottom the sixth inning to essentially sew up the decision as the home team.
Post 28’s Liam Flynn was the only hitter on either team to record multiple hits in the battle, but it wasn’t enough as Northampton concluded with just three total base-knocks in the defeat. Despite fanning seven Belchertown batters, Flynn also took the loss on the bump with four earned-runs allowed and six walks surrendered in 5.2 innings.
Northampton’s final 2025 record came in at 8-7 after dropping both games over the weekend.
