By now, it’s set in that the Bellefonte baseball team are state champions and the community is just as excited as the team.

“They know they were playing for more than just themselves every day and that’s part of the maturing process of all of us as adults, to know that there’s more going on than just our one at bat or our everyday lives.  I think they have a decent little perspective on that at young age,” said Bellefonte Head Coach Dan Fravel.

The Red Raiders won it for themselves, for their school, community, and for Dylan Crunick.

“I think that definitely all of us that were really close to him, in the back of our mind knew that he would be a key piece to this team if he was still here today.  We all miss him a lot,” said junior Tyler Kreger.

Dylan grew up playing baseball with most of the boys on the state championship team, but passed away at the age of 15 after a battle with cancer.  He never had the chance to take the diamond with the Bellefonte baseball team, but was still key to their success.

“Everybody on this team knew what Dylan meant to this community,” said senior Kyler Mellott.  “We lost him really early and he would have been a huge part of this team.  He would have been our everyday shortstop.  The kid was a stud.  We were fortunate enough to have Cooper this season and Cooper brought that with us.”

Cooper is Dylan’s brother and that’s just one of many ways the Red Raiders carried Dylan’s memory with them through the season.

“They had some mementos, the wristbands and reminders and I think it’s pretty honorable of them to be able to acknowledge that it’s not a given right to play ball every day.  You earn it.  You live day-by-day and you don’t take anything for granted.”

The players would have much rather had Dylan on the field this season and in a way, they did.

“He’s just always with us the whole time,” Kreger said.

“He was definitely in the back of our minds,” said Mellott.  “We were definitely playing for him.”