Albin Delivers Walk Off Single to End Regular Season With a Win

Heading into the game, the Bethel High baseball had doubts about what it would get out of Zach Albin when they took on Weston High. Turns out there was no need to worry; Albin came through with a walk-off single, and pitched three innings in relief to lead the Wildcats to a dramatic 5-4 win.

“Going into the game we didn’t know if we’d have Zach today, he wasn’t feeling good,” Coach Ray Turek said. “All said and done, picking up the win, getting a couple of hits, it was a big day for him. Good all-around performance for him.”

While it was Albin who ended the game with his seventh inning single, it was John Sorice and Andrew Guercio who got the Wildcats’ rally started. With the Wildcats trailing by one, Sorice started the inning with a double to right-centerfield.

Guercio followed with a shot to the right that looked like it might get out, but stayed in play for a game-tying double instead. The back-to-back doubles forced the Trojans to pull their starter, Jjay Lane, after six innings and bring in, Charles Ameer.

“Andrew just had a good swing,” Turek said. “He was trying to hit the ball to right field to move John over, and fortunately he hit it a lot farther, so that worked out well for us.”

Ameer struck out the first batter he faced, but couldn’t retire Albin, who singled a 2-2 pitch through the left side of the infield, easily scoring Guercio from second.

“We’re happy with that, we thought we played pretty well today,” Turek said. “They played pretty well, that’s their best pitcher, he did a good job, he pitched well.”

The Wildcats trailed right from the start, and went into the sixth trailing 3-1 before they finally got their offense going.

Avery Rizzuto struck out to start the inning but reached base when the third strike eluded Weston’s catcher. He advanced to second on a wild pitch and came home on a single from Albin. Albin took second when the relay throw headed down the third baseline, he then stole third and scored the tying run on Alex Amaru’s single.

“It was just a matter of putting the ball in play and putting a little pressure on them,” Turek said. “When that happened, good things happened for us.”

The Trojans recaptured the lead with a run in the next inning on a shallow fly ball to center.

Kevin Vaughn made the start for the Wildcats and pitched into the third inning, but was pulled after walking the first two batters of the inning.

Chris Galvin came in and got the first batter he faced to hit to a grounder to Sorice at shortstop. Sorice tagged the lead runner, and fired to first to complete the double play. Galvin struck out the next batter to end the threat.

“He [Galvin] got us out of a jam there, and John Sorice made a great play on that double play on the tag and throw to first,” Turek said.

Galvin pitched went onto pitch a scoreless fourth and was replaced by Albin at the start of the fifth.

With the regular season over, the Wildcats will now wait until Tuesday to find out when and where their first playoff game will be.