(This is the latest in a series of entries by guest bloggers throughout the high school spring sports season. Returning captains Bobby Horn and Steve Rivera, who played a key role during the Westhill High School baseball team’s magical run to the CIAC Class LL championship last year, will take you along for the ride as the Vikings deal with the pressures of attempting to repeat.)
By Bobby Horn and Steve Rivera
We seem to be coming together after suffering a tough loss to our city rival Trinity Catholic, 6-2. It seemed to be the sign that let us know that we needed to step it up.
That is just what we did.
Our next game was against Weston, where we fell behind, 10-2, after the third inning. However, we put our heads together and stepped it up with a huge inning in the bottom of the third. We began chipping at the lead, eventually getting within, 10-6.
Then Stanley Paul stepped up to the plate with the bases loaded and two outs. He belted a grand slam to tie up the game.
It was unbelievable and it was something that let us know that we had come back too far to lose this game.
In the bottom of the sixth, we found ourselves tied at 11 apiece before Scotty Valenzano doubled to give us a one-run lead. We were not done yet. Paul, our hot hitter, came through with another home run to put us ahead, 14-11. That turned out to be huge since Weston scored twice in the top of the seventh, giving us the 14-13 win.
After three straight days of cancellations because of the weather, we had been anxious to play.
Our next opponent was undefeated St. Joseph. We were determined to hand the Cadets their first loss and to show the FCIAC that we are still here. We came out firing and won, 16-4. Our bats were hot and we were not ready to cool them off yet.
Then came Fairfield Warde, which was a hard-fought battle throughout the whole game. We quickly took a 5-0 lead in the first inning. However we had some troubles with our fielding, committing eight errors.
That was the only thing that was keeping Warde in the game. The contest was constantly going back and forth. Luckily, a frustrating day turned into a 16-14 win.
We finally finished our week off against Bridgeport Central. The bats once again came alive behind the pitching off Tyler Rich to give us another big win in the FCIAC, 9-0.
This put us back where we needed to be. We are now 6-2 overall with a 5-2 record in the FCIAC.
We are looking forward to the week coming up where we face two tough teams, Brian McMahon and Trumbull.
The Vikings, however, are ready for the challenges ahead. We are finally playing baseball the way the Vikings are known to play.
