NEWS

By Don Leypoldt
What does it take to win an NECBL championship?
The Vermont Mountaineers, as usual, could fly around the bases this summer.  They lapped the rest of the NECBL in steals.  Vermont’s hitting was good.  Their fielding was solid.
But there is a reason that tired adages are still trudged out.  “Pitching wins Championships” is oft-said… because it is true.
The Vermont staff had the lowest WHIP in the 2015 NECBL.  They were the only team in the New England League whose opponents slugged under .300 against them.
6’4” Sean Leland, a rising sophomore for the Louisville Cardinals, was arguably the best pitcher on the best pitching staff of the NECBL. 
“I went into this summer really wanting to work on my change-up,” said Leland.  “It’s what I was trying to do and it really helped me out a lot.  It worked for me in my last game.”  
Boy, did it ever.
Vermont’s Leland fanned 41 and walked just 7 in 37.1 innings.  And when Leland was on, he dominated.  
Leland won the NECBL Pitcher of the Week for his July 3rd 4-0 shutout of North Adams, where he struck out eight and allowed just four base runners in seven innings.
The gem was followed by two sub-par outings.  But Leland adjusted and on July 21st, allowed only four base runners in 8.1 shutout innings at Keene.  The start earned the Mountaineer his second NECBL Pitcher of the Week Award.
“Knowing that Keene has a small field helped to force me to keep the ball down,” Leland observed, “and after doing that in that game, it stuck in my head and helped me get the feel down.”
The Chicagoland native peaked at the right time- at summer’s end when the rest of his Mountaineer mates were peaking.  An ugly 13-4 loss to Valley on June 22nd dropped Vermont to 6-7, but the Mountain Men rallied to win 19 of their last 28…and the Northern Division title.
Leland and his teammates felt that this could be a special summer “during the end of the regular season, when we clinched the #1 seed.  I think everyone was feeling good about it,” he said.  “Early in the season, we had some guys streaking and some guys were off.  It didn’t really feel like we were all together.  But during the end of the season when the playoffs were coming, everyone seemed to (come together).”
Leland struck out five Muskrats in five innings during Vermont’s 10-3 first round playoff win against Laconia.  In game two of the NECBL championship, Vermont trailed 1 game to 0 against Mystic in a win or go home game.  Leland, a former high school quarterback, loves Peyton Manning because of the signal caller’s “preparation.”  And Leland was prepared to give one more ace performance.
“I knew it was the last game I was going to pitch in the summer and I just wanted to lay it all out there.  Being at home made it even better,” Leland offered.  “Mystic could hit and they were putting up crazy amounts of runs per game.  I wanted to throw strikes, get ahead in the count and keep the ball down.”
Leland allowed only one run in eight walk-free innings, struck out six and Vermont beat Mystic 5-4.  The next night, Vermont plated a tenth inning run to beat the host Schooners 3-2 and take home the Fay Vincent Cup for the first time since 2007.
It was the icing on the cake of a terrific summer in Montpelier.  “Pretty much every single game we had a big bunch of fans and that was awesome,” Leland said.  “And it wasn’t what I was expecting in summer ball.  It made it a lot more fun.
“I really had never been to the East Coast so I’d say the mountains are what stuck out,” he continued.  “The Midwest has a lot of prairies, flatland and corn.  The mountains are really cool.  Waking up to that every day, I’d say was the best part.”
It’s a steep mountain climb to the top of the NECBL, but Leland and the Mountaineers were up to the challenge this summer.