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Fair Haven Hoping To Make Another Run At State Title

FAIR HAVEN, Vt. - When Fair Haven last took the baseball field the Slaters stunned top-seeded Otter Valley 3-1 to claim the Division II state championship.

That was in 2019, an accomplishment that took Fair Haven 28 years to make a return trip to the title game. The hope was another would follow a year later but Covid-19 brought an end to that thought.

“Last year's team would have been very competitive and had the chance to repeat as state champions,” noted head coach Adam Greenlese. “We lost a lot of good seniors from 2019, but our 2020 juniors and seniors would have been great together.”

Two players, Evan Reed and Ryan Muratorri, return in 2021 after taking part in the state title run that included a 1-0 victory over No. 2 Enosburg in the 2019 semifinals. Reed, who was 2-2 with five putouts in right field in the championship game, is expected to pitch and play infield and outfield this season while Muratori can play first base and catcher.

Aubrey Ramey, now playing at Castleton University, was the ace of the staff as a junior on the 2019 team and must be replaced. Also gone are Andrew Lanthier, who plays for St. Michaels in Burlington, and Dylan Lee, a standout catcher for Fair Haven.

“We will have athletes that are willing to learn and work hard,” Greenlese said in looking ahead to the coming campaign. “We have some young leaders and guys that are scrappy.

“The concern is that this is a young team overall with not a lot of varsity or high school baseball experience.”

Middle infielder Sawyer Ramey, the younger brother of Aubrey, is a promising newcomer according to Greenlese.

“He is extremely athletic,” Greenlese pointed out about the Fair Haven sophomore. “He’s smart on the field and patient at the plate.”

The fifth-year head coach (counting 2020) is “hoping to be in the top half of the league” this season.

“There are a lot of unknowns having missed last season for everybody, so it’s hard to say where everybody will land,” explained Greenlese, who is 35-21 in his time as varsity head coach with two trips to the state semifinals prior to the 2019 championship, the second at Fair Haven - the other coming in 1991.

“The key to success is to be selfless, do our jobs at the plate, be scrappy for runs, throw strikes on the mound to get the ball in play and be able to take bases.”

Greenlese has hopes that will happen with this squad.

“I like the newness of this team,” Greenlese related. “We will definitely be a young team, but that will be the case with a lot of teams with freshmen and sophomores that have not seen a high school at-bat. I’m excited about the new vibe, the culture and the environment.”

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