Streaking Middletown opens tourney at North Haven

Middletown Post 75 will put ace right-hander Luke Garofalo on the mound Saturday against host North Haven in its opening game of the American Legion state tournament.

Game time is 1 p.m. at Bob DeMayo Field. The winner will take on the winner between Oakville and Westport on Sunday. If Westport pulls an upset, it will play Post 75 at Palmer Field at a time to be determined.

Saturday marks the start of the tournament’s double-elimination pod play, which is scheduled to conclude Wednesday. There are four, four-team pods sectioned into Northern and Southern divisions, with each team seeded first through fourth based on its finish in zone play. The eight pod champions advance to a super-regional-style format.

Middletown is seeded third in its pod by virtue of a third-place finish in Zone 3. The 75ers (16-12 in zone play, 20-17 overall) are

riding the momentum of a five-game winning streak.

“We are definitely playing our best baseball at the right time,” said Jay Famiglietti, who took over as 75ers coach when Tim D’Aquila resigned nearly three weeks ago. “We went 5-0 in our last five zone games and we had a fun non-zone game (against tournament qualifier Tri-County) on Monday night. We played seven innings of errorless baseball.

“We’re playing loose. We’ve only had a few light workouts this week. We wanted to be rested and fresh and ready to make a run down the stretch here.”

North Haven (16-5, 22-5 overall) finished tied for second in Zone 2 and is on a roll of its own, winning eight of its last 10. Famiglietti wasn’t aware that Post 75 would be playing Post 76 until late Thursday, when a tiebreaker in Zone 2 determined that North Haven would be the second seed ahead of Branford.

“We anticipate North Haven won’t give us many

outs,” Famiglietti said. “They’ll do the little things right. We’ll have to pitch it and hit it.”

Garofalo went the distance to beat Madison in his last start. In the one before that, he took a nohitter into the seventh inning against Zone 3 champion Cheshire, only to come away with a no-decision after maxing out his pitch count. He struck out 15.

The one unknown in the 75ers’ starting lineup Saturday will be whether Ryan Hurlbert or AJ Kleczkowski gets the start at first base. Otherwise, Famiglietti said his starters will be Ryan Famiglietti at catcher, Tyler LeMay at third, Cole Niedmann at shortstop, Connor Cardi at second, Cal Pitruzzello in left field, Tim Dickson in center and Connor Rulnick in right.

State tournament games are seven innings, with a 10-run mercy rule. There is no re-entry, unlike the Legion’s 19U regular-season rule that allowed for it.

The Cromwell-Portland Post 105 contingent is the fourth seed in its Northern Division pod and visits Tolland on Saturday.