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Fairfield Prep grinds out win over Amity

Thursday, April 25, 2013 by:Mike Cardillo

One of the things high school baseball coaches love to talk about is, “being up” for a particular game.

Amity coach Sal Coppola is well-versed in this, considering his team is always one the opponent is gunning to beat due to the Spartans lengthy track record of success.

Thursday afternoon against Fairfield Prep was no exception.

“Every game people are gunning for you and you have to come ready to play,” he said after the Jesuits 1-0 victory.

Fairfield Prep scored the game’s only run when Chris Collins scored on a errant pickoff attempt at third base in the fifth inning.

“They were up all game,” Coppola said. “From infield to outfield, they wanted it bad all game. You could tell. They were grinding.”

The attitude by Prep was very welcome from its coach, Rudy Mauritz who said his team was flat a day earlier in a loss to Law.

“We waited to start competing for some reason,” he said. “I’m not exactly sure why. We knew we’d have to compete better today.”

The sight of the Amity jerseys likely played a part in that.

“It’s easier to get up for (Amity),” Mauritz said. “It’s easier to be intense for them. It’s a maturing process we’re going through.”

Prep starter David Gerics was sharp throughout, scattering four hits and settling into a late-inning grove, as he out-dueled Amity ace Mike Concato.

“Every year Amity puts a great team together, so you know you have be almost flawless to beat them,” Gerics said.

Banged up NDWH tops Foran

Monday, April 22, 2013 by:Mike Cardillo

This is getting nuts.

It’s April 21 and we’ve had, what, one nice Spring day so far this season?

Is Spring the thing of the past? Are we going to go from 50 degrees to 90 degrees over night?

Oh right, let’s talk some high school baseball.

Monday it was sunny and not very windy for ND-West Haven’s 11-2 win over Foran.

The Green Knights had a week to forget last week, losing three games — albeit to Amity, Fairfield Prep and Xavier — to fall from No. 4 to out of the state poll.

Notre Dame is battling injuries to three of its top four batters: Griffin Garabedian, Gregory Zullo and Brandon Wynne. Zullo is also the team’s No. 1 pitcher. Coach Lou Kessler hopes all three will be back, the UConn-bound Garabedian has an ankle issue and Zullo tweaked his hamstring.

That said, after Monday’s win Kessler was bullish on his team.

“We’ll be a tough team to handle if we get in the states and stay healthy,” he said.

Foran is mired in a tough patch. The Lions lost their previous game 1-0 to Guilford and followed it up with today’s loss, to lose for the third straight game.

Lions coach Garrett Walker said that his team — which had a lot of seniors returning in key spots — put high expectations on themselves and that maybe that they’re pressing as a result of them.

One thing to watch for Foran is that the Lions only play three more home games this year and have a five-game road trip beginning next Monday at Cheshire.

Central Making State Tournament Progress

Saturday, April 20, 2013 by:Mike Cardillo

Central improved to 4-4 on Saturday.

In Saturday’s Post I wrote a story about Central’s strong start to the season, as the Hilltoppers look to end a six-year state tournament drought.

You can read all the details here.

Central beat Harding 14-6 Saturday at Veteran’s Memorial Park in a Bridgeport Baseball Classic first round game. (The championship round will be played next month.) It means the Hilltoppers are halfway home to their goal of eight victories and a place in the Class LL tournament, which would certainly be a fine way to send off four-year starters Eric Vilanova and Christian Rodriguez.

Having already beaten Wilton, Fairfield Ludlowe and Stamford the eight win threshold seems well within reach for Central. There are a couple games on the schedule the Hilltoppers should win and with the way they’ve been playing nobody should take them lightly.

There’s one leftover from talking with coach Ely Drysten that didn’t make it into the print story. It’s about how he’s tried to adopt the approach of one of his former coaches — Sumner Sochrin. Sochrin, now head coach at Derby, has over 500 career wins and guided Central to its lone baseball state championship in 1978.

“What impresses me the most about (Sochrin), if you walked down to one of his game, you’d have no idea if his team was winning by 10, down by 10 or tied 0-0,” Drysten said. “They play hard every single inning. We need to do that.”

If Central does that, its six-year Class LL drought should come to an end in May.

Johnson steals show

Wednesday, April 10, 2013 by:Mike Cardillo

Foran honored Ken Walker before Wednesday's game against Law by naming its baseball field after the late coach.

After the other reporters and I were done interviewing Law junior righty Kevin Johnson a couple of his teammates said we should call him “Big Kev” in our stories.

It’s doubtful they’ve read the AP Stylebook, but I can’t fault their effort for trying.

The burly righty for Law was, well, big on the mound shutting down Foran with a two-hit shuout on the emotional afternoon the Lions honored the late coach Ken Walker.

Making his first start of the season, Johnson didn’t seem rattled whatsoever in a pressure-filled spot. The biggest jam he got into was in the seventh when he walked two batters to start the inning with Law ahead 5-0, the eventual final score. Johnson kept pumping in fastball on the inside corner, as he’d done all game and got out of the trouble.

It briefly seemed, maybe juuuuuuuust maybe, on the day Foran honored Walker the Lions might be able to conjure a special finish with a late rally, but as Foran coach Garrett Walker and his senior catcher Joe Zanghi said afteward the oft-repeated phrase, “that’s baseball.”

The pregame ceremony to honor Walker, who died at age 60 on June 29 and was a longtime baseball coach at Foran, was attended by a couple hundred people. There is a large banner out in left field with Walker’s name on it, a gift from the school’s Class of 2013. The outfield was packed with students and the infield there was a large number of seated people, including Walker’s family. The field was also ringed on both sides by onlookers and fans.

Milford mayor Ben Blake said, “Absolutely everybody loved coach Walker.

Former Milford High baseball coach Dick Jeynes, Walker’s first high school coach and teacher called him, “a true son of Milford.”

David Esposito, Walker’s first captain at Foran said, “The field is not named for him because he died, it’s named for Ken Walker because he lived.”

All-in-all, it was a very nice tribute to Walker.

The game itself wasn’t too bad either.

Nor was Johnson’s fastball.

Foran honoring Ken Walker Wednesday

Tuesday, April 9, 2013 by:Mike Cardillo

Foran will name its baseball field after Ken Walker Wednesday.

They say the best measure of a person is what they say about you when you pass on.

The obituary for former Foran baseball/football coach Ken Walker from late June includes a telling line:

“He was the kind of person people wanted to know.”

In doing research for my newspaper column to advance Wednesday’s ceremony at Foran, where the school will name its baseball field in the late Walker’s honor before its game with Law, it was hard to think of the properly way to capture a man who seemed to mean so much to so many people throughout the Milford community.

I wasn’t alone thinking this way.

“It’s hard to put into words,” said Walker’s longtime friend Cliff Bugyi. “He wasn’t just a coach and teacher. He was great man.”

The ceremony is slated to start around 3:15 p.m., with the game itself starting close to 4.

Dick Jeynes was Walker’s baseball coach at Milford High. Walker later worked on Jeynes’ staff as an assistant after he attended Central Connecticut. Jeynes remembers Walker as a great athlete, but a better person.

“He was a very practical person,” Jeynes said. “He was down to earth. He had a lot of common sense. He wasn’t interested in some philosophical thing that was 10 years away. He was interested in how he could help his kids right now. That was the practicality of Kenny Walker. If one went to his gym class when it concluded, you’d see kids crowded around him for his jokes and his comments. That showed how much they liked him.”

For Foran football coach Jeff Bevino, who worked alongside Walker in the school’s physical education department, his loss has been felt all school year.

“It’s still different every day,” Bevino said. “I still wait for him to come out and tell a joke. It’s not the same and it’s never going to be the same. We move on, but I tell you, the memories, whenever something happens in a gym class, I think ‘what would Kenny say about this?’ … Something funny.”

It’s hard to find guys like Walker as much these days, the sports “lifers.” The guys who coach (or even play) more than one sport. The guys who make sacrifices — daily — to help other people’s children become better adults.

Walker, who coached baseball at Foran from 1986-2003 and then in 2011-12, took the time off to help his son Garrett’s career. The two were able to coach together during his latter stint with the Lions, something that meant a lot.

“Even though he died too young, he had a pretty amazing life,” said David Esposito, Walker’s first captain at Foran. ” That’s to me an America man’s fairy tale. He got to do what he loved and share it with his son. That’s what makes it such a great story.”

Bevino might sum up Walker and his impact the best.

“The world lost a great man.”

Diamond Vision: Trumbull downs Bunnell

Thursday, April 4, 2013 by:Mike Cardillo

Trumbull's Carl Johnson attempts to pick off Bunnell's Cameron Belliveau at first, during Thursday's game in Stratford.

Another day of covering a game in early April.

Another night of thawing out.

Unlike some other high school sports, it’s hard to draw massive conclusions about a team going forward when it comes to baseball. Just look at Trumbull last year. The Eagles had seven losses before the FCIAC tournament, got in as as the No. 7 seed and beat No. 1 Greenwich in the final, which was undefeated at the time.

Thursday Trumbull looked strong offensively, pounding Bunnell 13-7 in a marathon game that wasn’t especially kind to pitchers for either team.

“We’re going to have a target on our back so we know we have to go out there and play our ‘A’ game every single day,” said Trumbull catcher James DeNomme, who drove in four and threw out a runner trying to steal second.

The top of Trumbull lineup were on-base machines, working counts and grinding out at-bats despite the dipping temperatures. Jake Levison and Chris Masi each scored twice and No. 3 hitter Casey Mack was on base in all four plate appearances, scoring three runs. Ryan Fritz drove in five from the DH spot.

The unusual thing about high school baseball is its unpredictability, especially once we hit the playoffs when anybody can beat anybody something you just don’t see very often in other sports.

With teams still rusty from being inside all winter, making any initial judgments seems foolhardy.

As Bunnell coach Scott Szturma said, “It’s early. We’re not panicking.”

Sound advice.

Other Thoughts:

* A couple scouts with Juggs guns were there, presumably, to observe Trumbull starter Colin Keyes and Bunnell starter Justin Lasko. Neither seemed to have good control today, which is to be expected when its cold and tough to get a good gripe on the ball.

* Maybe I still have basketball on the brain, so it was odd to see Bunnell’s Tim White and Matt Nolting in baseball uniforms. (White was cleared to play earlier in the day due to a lingering back injury.)

* Spent some time with Bunnell soccer coach Jim Ginand, who does the PA at Bulldogs baseball games. The Bulldogs have some, let’s say, interesting at-bat walk-up music, highlighted by Nolting’s choice of Miley Cyrus’ “Party in the U.S.A.” Bunnell’s talented sophomore Ross Rossomando didn’t pick a song, so the seniors saddled him with the Offspring’s 1998 classic, “Pretty Fly (For A White Guy).”

* Nolting and Cameron Belliveau hard into each other pretty hard trying to grab a soft liner up the middle behind second base. Both called for it, and the result was both laid on the outfield grass, briefly. Both came out of the game but seemed OK … in my qualified medical opinion.

Shelton wins the Class LL title

Saturday, June 9, 2012 by:Mike Cardillo

MIDDLETOWN — Three-plus decades of frustration on the baseball diamond melted away in impressive fashion for the Shelton baseball team Saturday night at Palmer Field.

The Gaels took home their first state title since 1976, defeating South Windsor 7-2 to take home the Class LL crown, the school’s fifth overall.

Ryan Testani – fourth inning aside — was sharp on the mound for Shelton, scattering two hits while striking out nine. He also drove in three runs at the plate.

Shelton got started early and chased South Windsor starter Daniel Bettigole in the third inning, taking a 6-0 lead.

Ryan Daiss drove in a run, scoring twice.

Dan McCormack had an important one-out hit in the second, doubling the Shelton lead to 2-0 after Testani’s double to right-center scored Daiss.

After Eric Kobfor the last out, Shelton rushed onto the field in celebration around the mound.

Other Thoughts:

* Big student crowds for each school. South Windsor probably had more than Shelton, but either way the kids traded barbs back and forth.

* The “world famous” Palmer Field hot dogs certainly lived up to their billing.

Postgame Quotables:

* Shelton coach Scott Gura dedicated the win to former Gales’ coach Ed Marocco, who died in 2008. Mar0cco coached Shelton for 29 years until his untimely death.

“I know Eddie Marocco was our guardian angel looking down on us beaming with pride. He was my mentor, I played for him in 1989 and we brought home a state championship, I decicate this win to him. It’s been 36 years since we won a championship and it’s special.”

* Gura if he thinks his team is the best in the state?

“There’s no question we proved we were the best team in the state,” he said.

* Shelton allowed only three runs in 28 state tournament innings, all pitched by Testani and Daiss.

“We had two lights out pitchers all year. Ryan Daiss and Ryan Testani were simply outstanding in the state tournament,” Gura said.

Class LL baseball preview capsule: Shelton vs. South Windsor

Friday, June 8, 2012 by:Mike Cardillo

Shelton senior Ryan Zahornasky

WHAT: Class LL baseball final

WHEN: Saturday, 7

WHERE: Palmer Field, Middletown

SEEDS/RECORDS: No. 4 Shelton (21-5) vs. No. 6 South Windsor (19-5)

PREVIOUS TITLES: Shelton 4 (Class L: 1972, 1973, 1974; Class LL: 1976); South Windsor 1 (Class L: 1993)

RUN TO FINAL: Shelton: bye; beat No. 13 Newtown 5-0; beat No. 5 Ridgefield 2-0; beat No. 8 East Hartford 7-1; South Windsor: beat No. 27 Manchester 5-3; beat No. 11 McMahon 6-3; beat No. 3 Bristol Central 4-3 (13); beat No. 18 Southington 6-5 (8).

PLAYERS TO WATCH: Shelton: Sr. 1B/P Ryan Daiss; Sr. 3B Ryan Zahornasky; Sr. C Bryan Kondor; Jr. OF Marcello Ursini; Jr. P/1B Ryan Testani. South Windsor: Jr. P Daniel Bettingole; Sr. DH Trevor Mirek.

OUTLOOK: Hard to figure two teams coming into the final with such divergent paths. Shelton has rolled through its three games, with starting pitchers Ryan Daiss and Ryan Testani — the latter will start Saturday — having allowed only one run in 21 innings. On the other side, South Windsor has used an entire fleet of arms after back-to-back extra-inning games in the quarterfinals and semifinals. Shelton still has the bad taste of losing the SCC final to Amity two weeks ago at Yale Field in its mouth, something that’s motivated the team. “We don’t underestimate any team,” Gaels coach Scott Gura said. “We learned that after the Amity game. A baseball game comes down to three, four plays and that’s what happened in the SCC final. We need to overcome that on Saturday. We need to make those plays to win a championship.”

PREDICTION: Shelton 6, South Windsor 2

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