Cheshire American Legion Beats Branford, Advances to Super Regional Final

The Cheshire American Legion baseball team’s wild postseason ride continued with a 2-0 Super Regional victory over powerhouse Branford Sunday at Cubeta Stadium in Stamford.

Cheshire, which opened the tournament with a controversial forfeit loss to Trumbull before bouncing back to win two straight in that series, will play in the Super Regional final Tuesday at 3:30 p.m. at Cubeta Stadium.

Cheshire (28-10), which also rallied to beat Stamford 5-4 in 10 innings on Saturday, will play the winner of Branford/Stamford who will play Tuesday at 3:30 p.m. Whoever wins that game will have to beat Cheshire twice in the final to advance.

Branford (32-3) is not only the defending state champion, but also the reigning Northeast Regional champ and advanced to the Legion World Series before eventually being eliminated by California.

Cheshire’s Liam Davey and Kyle Waldron worked in and out of trouble in Sunday’s victory, stranding 13 runners and combining on the shutout.

“It was a little nerve-wracking, but we have been able to get out of jams all year,” Waldron told the Meriden Record-Journal. “We knew we had the stuff to do it. We have confidence in ourselves that we can get out of jams.”

Cheshire coach Bill Robertson is from Branford and it was the first time in three tries that his team has beaten his hometown squad.

“Some of the players on (Branford), I’ve played with their dads,” Robertson told Henry Chisholm of the New Haven Register/GameTimeCT.com. “I can have conversations with them, they’re all good kids. But there’s nothing special about (beating them), we’re just happy with what we did.”

Read more at the Record-Journal here and GameTimeCT here.