Wilton Baseball Lets One Slip Away

In a wild, back-and-forth game,  Norwalk center fielder Spencer Jacoby just about did it all for the Bears.  

He belted two runs, drove in five and may have saved the game with a dramatic catch to end the seventh inning, as Norwalk outlasted Wilton, 15-8,  in eight innings Friday afternoon.

Jacoby, who was playing in his third game since suffering a concussion in a collision against Darien, smacked a grand slam in the fifth inning.

But his biggest contribution may have come with two outs in the bottom of the seventh, when Wilton's Aaron Shapiro hit a drive to straight-away center field.

Jacoby caught the ball hit over his head on the dead run, then lost his balance and slid away from everyone, including the left fielder coming over to back up the play.  He stayed on the ground for a second admiring his work.

The base umpire made no call on the play, and Shapiro rounded the bases, scoring what Wilton thought might have been the winning run.

Eventually, however, the plate umpire ruled that the ball had been caught, and the game proceeded to extra innings, when Norwalk broke it open with seven runs in the eighth.

After the game, Jacoby was all smiles.

"It was my first grand slam of any kind, and I did catch the ball," said Jacoby, who indicated he felt "100 percent" and could have played in the previous game but was held out for precautionary reasons.

Norwalk (7-4) took control in the eighth behind Jim Cooksey's two-run double and RBI singles by Kevin Daniele and Mike Parlanti. 

Norwalk opened the scoring with two runs in the top of the first, but Wilton strung together four straight hits in the second to tie it.  Norwalk right fielder Doug Weeks made a shoe-string catcher to prevent the Warriors from doing further damage. 

Wilton scored twice in the fourth to go up, 4-2, but Jacoby's grand slam staked the Bears to a 6-4  lead.

The Warriors took advantage of a pair of errors to pull even again, 6-6, in the bottom of the fifth.

An RBI single by Chris Kassamis gave Norwalk a 7-6 lead in the top of the sixth, but Wilton scored twice in the bottom half to go up, 8-7.

Norwalk's Leon Fleming's tied the contest yet again with a run-scoring single in the top of the seventh, setting the stage for Jacoby's defensive heroics.

The loss snapped a five-game winning streak for Wilton (8-2).

"I am concerned that my top three pitchers were not able to come through when they had the chance to close the game out," Wilton coach Tim Eagen said.

 "Give Norwalk credit. They kept battling and swung the bat even when we had them down,  but we should have put this one away. They gave us the opportunities with their errors in the fifth inning."