East Haven Wins Close Game Against Orange

East Haven's Andrew Apuzzo banged a 2-out, 2-run seventh inning single past first base that broke up a 2-2 deadlock between Post 127 of Orange and East Haven Post 89 and sent the 89ers on to a 5-3 Zone 2 victory Monday night at Brinley Field.

With that last inning victory, East Haven improved its record to 15-5 and solidified its hold on second place in Zone 2. The 89ers now have 1 ½ game lead over third place Milford Post 196, which has a 13-6 record. Milford and East Haven tangle this week in a key 3 game series to determine which team grabs the runner-up slot in Zone 2.

On the other side of the coin, Orange drops to 6-12. With this loss and only 6 games left in the regular season, Post 127 has been eliminated from any possibility of winning more than half of its games, which is required in order to qualify for the state play- in single elimination tournament that begins on July 19^th.

“If we didn’t have bad luck, we’d have no luck at all,” Orange Assistant Coach Bill Butler said.

For 4 1/2 innings Orange hurler Grayson Amoroso and DeCaprio, his East Haven counterpart, were locked in a scoreless pitching duel. Finally in the bottom of the fifth inning, Orange broke through with the first 2 runs of the contest. DeCaprio got himself into trouble by opening the inning with successive free passes to Jim Martino, Amoroso, Brian Kernan, and Mark Boland. With his team now leading 1-0 and the bases still loaded, Ted Ballou drew a one-out walk that forced home Amoroso with the hosts’ second run of the inning.

At that point, Post 89 Coach Joe Pelliccia brought Adam Poulin in to replace DeCaprio. He got Adam Kysasky to knock the ball at third baseman Mike Perry, who fired the ball home to erase Kernan. With 2 outs and the bases still loaded, Perry avoided further damage by retiring Boland on an inning-ending fielder’s choice off the bat of Sean Butler.

Post 127’s 2-0 lead did not last very long. With 1 out in the top of the sixth, Amoroso walked Mike Anastasio and Brandon Gargiulo. Pouloin’s single into left center field drove in Anastasio with the 89’ers first run. Following a bases-loading walk to DeCaprio, Amaroso got Larry Cifarelli to rap into a fielder’s choice that retired Poulin as he tried to score from third base. With the bases still loaded, he walked Zack Korwek to bring home Gargiulo with the game-tying tally.

The game was still deadlocked 2-2 as East Haven came to bat in the top of the seventh inning. With 2 outs, Amoroso handed out successive free passes to Anastasio, Gargiuolo, and Poulin to once again load the bases. Apuzzo stepped up and drilled his 2-out, 2-run single to give the visitors a 4-2 lead. Home plate umpire Mike Durso, Jr. then called a balk on Dane Simone, who just came in to replace the obviously tiring Amoroso.  The balk enabled Poulin to score and extend the 89er lead to 5-2.

According to Post 127 Coach Bob Mirto, “With the bases loaded and 2 outs, we talked about replacing Grayson, but I was outvoted 2-1 (by Assistant coaches Butler and Joe Pisano). They insisted we leave Grayson in because Dane sometimes has control problems and they did not want to bring him in with the bases loaded. Trying to be sure he threw a strike, Grayson took something off his fastball and their guy (Apuzzo) slapped it into right field.”

Asked if he felt he and his coaches had waited too long to replace Amoroso, Mirto said, “In hind sight, we probably did wait too long to bring Dane in, but in a situation like that you don’t know the answer until you know the answer. Grayson had pitched a great game in the heat and humidity. He threw only 102 pitches.”

Trailing 5-2, Orange did try to battle back in the bottom of the seventh inning. After seeing Poulin walk Boland, the Orange lead-off batter Pelliccia had the hard-throwing Perry come in to nail down the victory.  Successive 1-out singles by Ballou, Kyasky, and Butler cut the lead to 2 runs (5-3) but Perry avoided further damage by retiring Brian Diaz on a game-ending fly ball to center field.

“We played well tonight, much better than we had been playing, especially on defense. This time, we didn’t beat ourselves but not scoring again when we still had the bases loaded in the bottom of the seventh inning, killed us,” Mirto said. “It was a tough game to lose.”

Orange ended up with 3 runs on only 3 hits (all in the bottom of the seventh inning). While DeCaprio, Poulin (who was credited with the win), and Perry (who earned a save) did not allow a base hit until there were 2 outs in the bottom of the seventh inning, they combined to walk 10 batters.

Correction: Andrew Apuzzo was incorrectly identified in the lead paragraph.