Middletown American Legion teams ramping up

MIDDLETOWN — June is the time for settling into summer. Watching baseball full-time, pulling the Eagles and Steely Dan out of storage, maybe getting the OK to buy a new grill are some good ways to do June.

The month also is time for Middletown’s American Legion baseball programs to rev up at Palmer Field. The Middletown Post 75 team partook in two non-Zone III games over the weekend and won both, 3-1 over Stamford and 11-3 over Tri-County, with fairly good starting pitching coming from Sean Lenehan and Mike Gaboury.

When the 75ers mobilized in late May, it wasn’t a getto-know-you time. For the past few years, coach Tim D’Aquila has used fall Sundays to keep his 19U Senior, 17U Junior and even 15U Prep players playing ball long after the close of summer. Last winter, even, he organized workouts at Athlete Training Institute in Cromwell for the first time. It was another way for baseball to be ever-present in the minds of players at every Legion ball level.

“I’ve known since the end of October where we are with the 19U roster,” he said Sunday before returning to what is best described as the table-setter that fall ball can be — Sunday doubleheaders, tournaments, just keeping kids’ baseball muscles in shape and their minds on the game long after the traditional American Legion summer season has ended.

“Why not play baseball on a Sunday in the fall? It’s a way to get back and see your friends who might go to different schools. It’s a chance to compete. Younger kids can play against older kids,” D’Aquila said. “I tell them, ‘if you’re not doing anything this Sunday, give us one game.’ Some might say, ‘I played football on Saturday. It’s too much.’ I say it’s not.

“If the kids put effort into this program, they will get better.”

On that note, Post 75’s 18-player roster has 16 slots filled today. They are:

Pitchers: Gaboury (Endicott College), Lenehan (Xavier), A.J. Kleczkowski (Xavier), Jake Famiglietti (Xavier), DJ Arnold (Vinal Tech), Luke Garofalo (Coginchaug), Connor Cardi (Xavier) and Ryan Hurlbert (MHS).

Position players: Arnold, Garofalo, Cardi, Hurlbert, Ben Alonzo (Haddam-Killingworth), Ben Murphy (Western New England College), Cal Pitruzzello (Coginchaug), Ryan Conklin (MHS), Tim Dickson (University of Hartford), Ryan Famiglietti (Sacred Heart), Spencer Higgs (Xavier), Cole Niedmann (Coginchaug) and Connor Rulnick (Coginchaug).

D’Aquila used the two weeks prior to his first games to get his players in “summer ball shape.”

“I run fast and long practices — lot of ground balls, lot of pitching, and intrasquad games,” he said.

Post 75’s position play looks to be strong. How its pitching comes along this summer is something to keep an eye on. Gaboury, Lenehan, Kleczkowski and Jake Famiglietti are pitchers only. D’Aquila said he lost 147 innings from last year’s staff, which equates to about 18 to 20 games’ worth of output.

“We play the same amount of games (38) this year. Every hitter is back except one, so kids this year will gain innings on the mound,” the coach said. “And we hope the 17 and 15 teams will develop pitchers than can eat up innings as well.”

POST 75 TEAM FINDS ITS VOICE

Scott Masse of Old Saybrook will be the publicaddress announcer at Palmer Field this summer.

Masse called games for the Bridgeport Bluefish for five seasons until the organization left the city for North Carolina following the 2017 season. Masse has a distinctive voice and is a total pro. Post 75’s leadership found a good one.

In other Palmer Field PA news, the word on the street is that the CIAC has hired Joe D’Ambrosio will call the CIAC baseball tournament championship games at 1 Bernie O’Rourke Drive this weekend. This is an excellent development. If you’re not sure who D’Ambrosio is, call me and we’ll talk over coffee.

AREA’S STATE OPEN QUALIFIERS

Weather permitting, outdoor track’s State Open for boys and girls is Monday at Willow Brook Park in New Britain.

For the girls, qualifiers from the area include Cromwell’s Andraya Yearwood (100 and 200 meters); Middletown’s Veronica Meyer ( javelin, discus, shot put), and Nasharie Davis (100 hurdles); East Hampton’s Julia Shirley (300 hurdles); H-K’s Vernonica Chrzanowski (triple jump) and 4x800 relay; Portland’s Lisa Agogliati ( jav); and Coginchaug’s Ashley Dana (800) and the 4x400 and 4x800 relays.

For the boys, area qualifiers include Middletown’s DeShaun Bradshaw (100), Jaymin Torres (110 hurdles), DeAaron Lawrence (high, triple and long jumps), Anthony Pappa (high jump), Dylan Drescher ( jav, discus); Xavier’s Pierre Sylvain (400), Owen Lally (800) and William Curran (1,600); H-K’s Andrew Meredith (1,600) and the 4x800 team.

ONE-STROKE LOSS NEEDS ASTERISK

Mercy’s golf team fell one shot short of defending its Southern Connecticut Conference team title. Amity won 383-384 last week at Hawk’s Landing Country Club in Southington.

That’s not the whole story, though. Amity’s five beat Mercy’s four. Think about that one for a moment. The Tigers’ No. 5 player fell ill the morning of the match and, by rule, could not be replaced.

“My one and two golfers played great and three and four struggled,” coach Pete Golanski said. “We should have won, but Amity is a good team. I was hoping to win, but stuff happens.”

Seniors Praewa Treekul shot 1-over 71 and Meghan DeVille shot 84 to lead the Tigers’ charge. Their rounds were the two lowest of the day, Golanski said.

During the regular season, Amity lost to Mercy by a stroke in their first meeting and by 11 one week later. One of Mercy’s golfers told me a few weeks back that an Amity player told her the team’s big goal one day was to beat the Tigers. Sure enough, it happened — under circumstances the teams could never have imagined.

The State Open is Tuesday at Tashua Knolls GC in New Canaan. Golanski expects it will be played in the rain and in temps in the 50s for the second year in a row. Treekul was the runner-up last year. She was named the SCC’s Player of the Year and Golanski was Coach of the Year, both for the second straight time.

TAKE NO FOE FOR GRANTED

A No. 32 seed upsetting a No. 1 seed in a state tournament isn’t as unusual as you might think.

Following an 18-2 regular season, No. 1 Haddam-Killingworth lost 4-1 to No. 32 Rocky Hill in the first round of the Class M baseball tournament. Rocky Hill then went on to lose to No. 17 Northwest Catholic by five runs in the next round, which might have made H-K coach Mark Brookes feel even more awful.

Oddly enough, it was the second year in a row the top seed lost to No. 32 in Class M baseball. Last year, Northwestern Regional won in the qualifying round, then knocked off No. 1 Ellington in the first round. Northwestern then lost 2-0 to No. 17 Cromwell in the second round.

Before 2017, the earliest a No. 1 seed in Class M was eliminated was 2009, when Seymour lost to St. Joseph.

JUST WAIT TILL NEXT YEAR

Middletown’s softball team came within an out of upsetting defending champion Trumbull in the second round of the Class LL tournament — yet another sign the Blue Dragons are primed to win a lot next season.

Middletown scored twice in the seventh to jump ahead of the hosts 4-3. In the bottom half, Trumbull put runners on first and second with one out. MHS got the second out, but a sinking liner to left was too tough to handle and both Trumbull runners scored for a 5-4 victory.

“Earlier there were a couple plays we maybe could have made. The one in the seventh was not the only play we needed to make,” coach Sal Morello said. “We had a rough third inning. Trumbull scored three runs and we made two errors, and we didn’t start hitting until the fifth.

“It was good to see the girls’ reaction after we lost. They were upset, they wanted that game, they cared. This last month of the season, we played some really good softball.”

The Blue Dragons finished 13-9. All but one starting position player will be back in 2019. They had the No. 2 seed in Class LL, a 19-1 team from Fairfield County, on the ropes. It will be fun to watch Dominique Highsmith, etc. etc. etc.

MHS ULTIMATE TEAM

The MHS Ultimate team finished second among 66 teams in last month’s Pioneer Valley Invite, the largest high school tournament in the country. An incredible feat for the Blue Dragons.

Middletown made its way into the final by beating, among others, Canada’s top team, the third-best team in Massachusetts, and the nation’s second-best team in Westfield, Pennsylvania, according to coach Trevor Charles.

The Blue Dragons lost to the team from Amherst, Massachusetts, in the final 8-7. They had a first crack at Amherst the day before and lost that one 11-10.

“We earned a plethora of compliments from rival teams, parents and competitors for our spirited play,” Charles said.

Charles singled out Carson Fitzner and Jayden Coughlin for playing almost every point of every game. Coughlin broke a number of team records and Fitzner was lauded for his leadership.

THIS AND THAT

* Post 75’s caps this season have “Bransfield 19452018” insignia on their side as a tribute to Jim Bransfield. The longtime PA man died in February. The baseball and football press boxes at Palmer Field will be named in his memory later this year.

*Andrew Lombardo, a Xavier High graduate, received a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Seton Hall in May. Lombardo also covered sports for the student newspaper during his time in South Orange.

Along the way, he met JR Smith of the Cleveland Cavaliers at a Pirates basketball game and the two had their picture taken together. I wonder if the importance of knowing the score of a game in the final seconds — especially in the final seconds of an NBA Finals game, and especially if you had the ball in yours hands in those final seconds — ever came up.

* Middletown High’s marching band, one of the greatest in the land, has revealed its drum majors and captains for this fall. Drum majors are Elizabeth Joy, Dan Olerud and Rose Romano, and captains are Lauren Bomely, Kelsey Gaylord and Tyler Wenzel.