Grega Leads GB Millers Back to BABL Title Game

By Stephen DravisiBerkshires.com Sports
09:38PM / Saturday, August 15, 2026Print Story | Email Story

DALTON, Mass. – Will Grega struck out nine and allowed just one hit Saturday in pitching the unbeaten Great Barrington Millers to within one one of their third straight Berkshire Adult Baseball League 20-and-over Division Championship.

League batting champion Alex Salazar went 2-for-4 with an RBI, and the Millers scored five times in the top of the seventh to put away a 7-0 win over the Berkshire Thunder in the first game of their best-of-three title series.

The teams will meet again at 10 a.m. Sunday at Memorial Field in Great Barrington. If the Thunder pulls out a win, the teams will play again for all the marbles at about 1 p.m.

On Saturday, the Millers took the lead with two unearned runs against Berkshire’s Jake Barbarotta as he and Grega locked horns in a pitchers’ duel for six innings.

An error in the top of the third allowed Abdiel Cotto to score from third and give the Millers a 1-0 lead.

In the fifth, a pair of errors extended the inning to allow Brian Rodriguez to put a single in right field and bring home Chance O'Niel, who had reached on a one-out single.

The Thunder ended up with five errors in the game, putting extra strain on Barbarotta, who ended up departing with one out during the Millers’ seventh-inning rally.

Before that, he was brilliant, including picking up a strike out with the bases loaded to end the inning in the top of the fourth.

But Grega was better, not allowing a base runner until Cam Hilliard worked a leadoff walk in the bottom of the sixth and not giving up a base hit until Joe Bateman’s leadoff single in the seventh.

Grega also got a big defensive lift in the fifth, when Barbarotta ripped a line drive that looked sure to spoil the no-hitter, but Cotto made a diving grab to spear the ball and keep hopes alive for a no-no for a couple more innings.

The Thunder went to the seventh down 2-0 knowing it would start the bottom of the inning with the top of its lineup.

But the Millers squashed all hope with a five-run rally that started when Austin Cancilla led off with an infield single.

After the Thunder got an out, Salazar and Brian Rodriguez delivered back-to-back singles, pushing the margin to 4-0. A walk and a single from Colby Rueger brought about Barbarotta’s departure, down, 5-0.

Zach Redlund drove in a run with a single, and Cotto finished the rally with a sacrifice fly.

Bateman led off the bottom of the seventh with a single down the left-field line and moved up on an errant pickoff throw. But then he was picked off trying to steal third base. With the bases empty, Grega got a ground ball to the left side and a called third strike to end the game.

Photos from this game to come.

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Lee Wants Bioremediation in Housatonic River Vernal Pool Study

05:24AM / Thursday, September 03, 2026

LEE, Mass. — The town has asked the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and General Electric to include PCB bioremediation in its vernal pool study on the Housatonic River.

Lee officials are urging the EPA to require GE to add a bioremediation treatment arm to the vernal-pool study or provide the public with a clear explanation for why such testing is being excluded.

"This is exactly the kind of question EPA and GE should be asking before final remedy decisions are locked in," Select Board Chair Bob Jones said in a statement released to the press. "The town is not asking to slow the cleanup. We are asking EPA and GE to make the cleanup smarter, less destructive, and more protective over the long term."

An open house was held in Pittsfield earlier this summer for the Vernal Pool Pilot Study on Reach 5A of the Housatonic River, a five-mile stretch between the river's confluence and Lenox border.

EPA has required GE to conduct a Vernal Pool Pilot Study as part of the Housatonic River Rest of River remediation, comparing excavation and restoration with activated-carbon-based treatments, including a product called SediMite and powdered activated carbon, the town said.

Ten vernal pools will be cleaned of polychlorinated biphenyls in total, five with excavation and five with active carbon, and seven additional vernal pools will be monitored as controls. Construction will be complete around October, but the pools will be left to their natural processes and monitored with surveys and sampling for three years.

The Lee PCB Advisory Committee wrote a letter calling for the 21st-century approach it said could reduce long-term toxicity, avoid unnecessary destruction of sensitive habitats, and improve the effectiveness of the cleanup.

It states that Lee supports the study's purpose and agrees that EPA and GE must understand how cleanup activities affect sensitive vernal-pool ecosystems.

"The current pilot includes 10 treatment pools and seven control pools, while local officials understand that roughly 100 vernal pools may occur in the broader remediation corridor," the Aug. 27 letter reads.

"That makes the pilot study consequential: the methods tested now could shape how many sensitive wetlands are excavated, reconstructed, treated, or left with PCBs managed in place."

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