South Windsor American Legion Baseball Off to Slow Start

After a rocky start, the South Windsor Senior American Legion baseball team appears to have righted the ship having won its last three games.

Indeed, South Windsor bounced back from a rough 0-6 start with a doubleheader sweep of Manchester on June 24 by scores of 17-2 and 4-3 and a 3-2 victory over East Hartford on June 26.

South Windsor (3-6), which placed second in Zone 8 last year with an 18-8 record, now sits in seventh place out of nine teams - one game behind sixth-place East Hartford (4-5).

There were a couple of reasons for the slow opening to the season, according to head coach George Yates.

Most of the team comprises South Windsor High baseball players who lost in the state Class LL tournament championship game. That loss carried over to the beginning of the American Legion season.

“They had a tough time with that loss,” Yates said.

Also, the transition from aluminum bats to wooden bats that are used in Legion contributed to the offense struggling to catch up to the pitching, Yates said. The slump was evident when South Windsor was shut out in consecutive games by Ellington and Rockville by identical 2-0 scores on June 19 and 20.

But the bats woke up against Manchester, as South Windsor scored a season-high 17 runs in the first game of the double header, more runs than the team had scored in its previous six games combined.

Against East Hartford on June 26, the team scored just three runs, but rapped out 11 hits along the way.

Yates said that he also has a young team that features just four college players: Billy Manzi, Jason Smith, Peter Haggerty and Anthony Garcia.

Haggerty and Garcia are the team leaders, according to Yates, while high schoolers Robbie Linnell, Dan Bettigole and Brian Finnegan are key players.

And, despite the slow start, Yates said he believes the team can compete for a spot in the postseason. To qualify for the Senior Legion playoffs, a team must finish three games above .500 in its zone, which means South Windsor would have to finish 14-11.

That translates into the team having to go 11-5 the remainder of the season, something Yates believes is certainly within reach.

“The coaching staff has confidence in this team and believes in this team,” Yates said. “Winning breeds confidence. We got a couple of wins under our belt. We’ve got confidence and we’ll get on a roll.”

The team is scheduled to face Enfield today (June 28) on the road.