Hand hangs on

Pildner’s game-saving catch allows Tigers to escape Westies

WEST HAVEN — Hand coach Travis Lapointe shook his head as he walked towards the infield after talking to his Tigers’ baseball team.

He knew Hand had just escaped with a 7-5 victory over West Haven in a Southern Connecticut Conference contest Wednesday afternoon at Whitey Piurek Field.

“It’s hard to win on the road in the SCC,” Lapointe said. “We knew we were in for a fight today with West

Haven. They fought and were in the game until the very last pitch.”

Hand (4-1) had led 7-1 at one point but the Blue Devils kept chipping at its deficit and had winning runs on base with the bases loaded with one out in the bottom of the seventh inning. Sophomore righthander Johnny Reh fanned Evan Jones for the second out. Then leadoff hitter K.J. Harp belted what looked like a shot that would go to the fence for three runs and a West Haven victory. However,

Axl Pildner made a leaping one-handed catch to end the game.

“That kid hit the ball well enough for a threerun gamewinning double,” Lapointe said. “He just hit it to the wrong spot.”

“I thought we were going to get the walk off, but the kid went back and caught the line drive,”

West Haven coach Ron Luneau said.

Early on, it didn’t seem as if the game would come down to the final inning at all. West Haven sophomore starter Josh Trager struggled to find the plate as he walked eight hitters over three innings plus two batters as Hand took a 5-1 lead.

Errors in consecutive innings contributed to the Blue Devils’ early troubles. Hand scored a run without the benefit of a hit in the top of the second and three runs on just two hits in the third to grab a 4-0 lead. After a third inning RBI single by Dylan Supan closed it to 4-1, Trager was knocked out of the game without retiring a batter in the top of the fourth when a comebacker by Ben Kuja nailed him on his foot right before he walked another hitter. That forced Luneau’s hand as he went to lefthander Chase Supan in relief.

“We had Supan warming up in the third inning, but sometimes we want to see if kids could dig deeper,” Luneau said.

Supan struggled at first as he allowed Kuja to score

Dave Phillips / For Hearst Connecticut Media West Haven second baseman Dylan Supan is late with the tag on Hand's Evan Mastrobattisto on a stolen base in the first inning on Wednesday.