West Hartford Legion Drops First Game of State Tournament

As a reward for clinching first place in Zone 7, the West Hartford Post 96 American Legion baseball team had a week off between its last regular-season game and the first game of the state tournament.

The layoff turned out to be more of a curse than a blessing however, as the No. 4-seeded Post 96’s offense went cold and its defense was sloppy at times in a 3-0 loss to No. 13 Southington Post 72 at Palmer Field in Middletown on Saturday morning.

West Hartford co-head coach Steve Meucci said that the uncharacteristic lapses came from not having played in seven days.

“Having a week off affected us,” Meucci said. “Our team plays better when it’s playing every day. The last two weeks of the regular season, we’ve been playing every day. The week off threw off our timing. That’s the thing about the state tournament. You’ve got to execute. If you get good pitching and good defense, you will win every time.”

Southington starting pitcher Joe Sullivan allowed just six base runners on two hits, two walks, an error and a hit batsman over seven innings to earn the complete-game shutout.

(Legion senior tournament games are normally nine innings; the first-round games held Saturday were reduced to seven because of the heat wave that has set in the area.)

“Joe pitched phenomenally,” Southington head coach Marc Verderame said. “He threw a lot of first-pitch curve balls for strikes and a lot of second-pitch curveballs for strikes. When you start out the counts 0-1 and 0-2, good things are going to happen.”

Southington, which finished fourth in Zone 1, didn’t exactly knock the cover off the ball, logging just four hits off four West Hartford pitchers.

But Southington’s offense was opportunistic, scoring two unearned runs in the top of the first inning to give Sullivan what turned out to be an insurmountable lead.

Southington’s Alex Roger led off the game with a double and advanced to third on Dylan Danko’s exquisite bunt single.

Danko subsequently stole second to give Southington runners on second and third with no outs.

West Hartford starting pitcher Chris Colleary appeared to pitch his way out of the jam, however, by striking out the next two batters and then inducing Brian Thompson to hit a groundball to first baseman Mac Venora.

Venora’s toss to Colleary, who was covering the base, was high, allowing Roger and Danko to scamper home.

“That was uncharacteristic,” Meucci said. “This team prides itself on defense. With two outs, we had the right pitch, the right play. We just didn’t execute.”

The two early runs turned out to be an unexpected bounty for Sullivan.

“It was nice to get those runs early,” he said. “Our team tends to wait to get runs.”

Southington tacked on an insurance run in the fifth, when Ben Nichols’ sacrifice fly scored Chris Lee from third to make it 3-0.

West Hartford’s best scoring chance came in the bottom of the first inning, when Sullivan walked Nick Sanford and Venora back-to-back with two outs.

Sullivan, who had an interesting explanation for his early bout with wildness, settled down and got Chad Smedberg to fly out to end the threat.

“The mound was so good, I wasn’t used to it,” Sullivan said.

It was the last time a West Hartford runner advanced past first base all game.

Singles by Sanford and Venora in the third and sixth, respectively, accounted for West Hartford’s entire offensive output.

“He pounded the strike zone,” Meucci said of Sullivan’s performances. “When you do that with wood bat, good things happen.”

With the victory, Southington (22-8) advances to face Greenwich at 3:30 p.m. Sunday.

West Hartford (21-4), for its part, is scheduled to face Bethel in the loser’s bracket of the double-elimination tournament at 9:30 a.m. Sunday.

“These kids are resilient,” Meucci said. “They’ll bounce back.”

Both games will be held at Palmer Field in Middletown.

Southington 3, West Hartford 0

American Legion State Tournament

(At Palmer Field, Middletown)

Southington                             West Hartford

                           ab  r  h  bi                                ab  r  h  bi

Roger rf              3  1  1  0       DeMorais 3b      3  0  0  0

Danko cf            3  1  1  0       Minnes cf           3  0  0  0

Nichols 3b          1  0  0  1       Sanford ss          2  0  1  0

Lentini lf            4  0  1  0       Venora 1b           2  0  1  0

Thompson 1b    3  0  0  0       Smedberg 2b       3  0  0  0

Mazzamurro 2b 3  0  1  0       Packard cf          2  0  0  0

Callahan dh        2  0  0  0       Errico dh            2  0  0  0

Sullivan p           0  0  0  0       Colleary p          0 0  0  0

Dibble ss            3  0  0  0       Miceli p-c          1  0  0  0

Lee                     3  1  1  0       Francis p            0  0  0  0

                                                Lund p               1  0  0  0

                                                Mullin lf             1  0  0  0

                                                Becker                2  0  0  0

                                                LaRosa               0  0  0  0                              

Totals                 25  3  4  1     Totals               22  0  2  0

Southington        200 010 0 – 3  4  0

West Hartford    000 000 0 – 0  2  1

E – Venora, Demorais, Nichols. LOB – Southington 7, WH 5. 2B – Roger, Mazzamurro. SF – Nichols. SB – Lee. CS – Mazzamurro, Becker.

Southington

                                 ip    h  r  er  bb  so

Sullivan W                7     2   0   0   3   5

West Hartford

Colleary L                4.1  3   3   1   2   5

Miceli                       .2     1   0   0   0   1

Francis                     1      1   0   0   1   0

LaRosa                     1      0   0   0   1   2           

WP – LaRosa. HBP – by Colleary (Nichols), by Sullivan (Packard).