South Windsor Junior American Legion Off to Hot Start

The South Windsor Junior American Legion baseball team is enjoying a terrific season, having won 14 of its first 16 league games in Zone 8 and already qualifying for the state tournament.

While overall the team, made up of 17 town residents that are 15 to 17 years old, is young and inexperienced at this level, nine kids played for the team last summer. The team's strengths, according to head coach Craig Zimmerman, are overall depth, pitching, defense and base-running.

Last weekend, the Junior and Senior teams went to Rhode Island - visiting two colleges (Providence and the University of Rhode Island), played a couple of games against some local teams and spent some time at the beach.

The team is currently in first place in Zone 8 and plays Rockville today at McCoy Field at 11 a.m.

"We hope to play well and compete in each of our remaining [five] Zone games," Zimmerman wrote in an e-mail. "Each of our following 17 players have already contributed to our early season success: Bryan Bakas, Adam Bettigole, Garrett Brown, David Caye, Derek Chouinard, Jake Coughlin, Jonathan Falletti, Ben Firsick, Cooper Goslin, Alex Hughes, Mike Kelly, DJ Linnell, Zac Marlin, Steven Porcello, Dan Ray, Eric Serksnas and Joey Tamburro."