The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
SCC beats FCIAC in challenge weekend
It was not a total whitewash, but it was close.
The SCC dominated the early season FCIAC-SCC Challenge, going 11-4 over the weekend.
Trinity Catholic-Wilbur Cross scheduled for Tuesday and Wilton-Hand (April 17) will have no impact on the overall outcome as the SCC easily snagged bragging rights, for now.
Of course, the CIAC Class LL championship still resides in Westport, safely in the hands of the Staples Wreckers.
For their part, No. 1 Staples picked up one of the FCIAC’s four wins, doing so in dramatic fashion on a three-run walkoff home run by Drew Rogers, giving the reigning champs a 5-3 victory over Xavier.
“How’d you like that heart attack?” Staples coach Jack McFarland said to Hearst Connecticut Media after the game. “We take this FCIACSCC thing seriously. I told the kids we’re representing the FCIAC. It’s not a league game, but we want to play good baseball.”
In the other challenge games featuring GametimeCT Top-10 teams, Fairfield Prep got by Greenwich 5-1, Amity defeated Ridgefield 8-5, Branford knocked off New Canaan 4-2 and Notre Dame West Haven beat Westhill 4-2. All wins for the SCC
St. Joseph’s 11-2 win over Sheehan Sunday gave the FCIAC one more win from a top-10 team.
INVITATION LOST IN THE MAIL
Cheshire apparently did not take kindly to only receiving a total of 10 points in the first GametimeCT poll and took out its frustrations on opponents.
First, Cheshire beat Amity 8-3 on opening day, which is becoming a thing.
If you recall, Cheshire snapped Amity’s 28-game win streak last season, a streak which began after Cheshire had ended the Spartans’ 19-game winning streak in 2016.
In the win this season, West Point-bound Ben DeLaubell tossed a five-hit shutout over six innings, striking out six.
Ben Shadeck then pitched six shutout innings as the Rams defeated Trumbull 2-0 in the FCIAC-SCC Challenge.
Obviously, Cheshire (2-0) is now firmly in the Top 10, jumping all the way up to No. 3 in this week’s poll, and should be considered among the best teams in the state moving forward.
GROUND CONTROL
After last week began with snow, grounds crews around the state deserve a special shout-out for having fields ready to play on by Thursday.
In fact, only a handful of fields were not playable by the weekend, meaning postponements were kept to a minimum.
We know a lot of people are working hard to get fields ready, but a special note needs to be made for the crew at West Haven.
They not only had Whitey Piurek Field ready to go Saturday morning for West Haven and Career, they came back and had the field in tip-top shape when Notre Dame-West Haven and Westhill used the field later that afternoon.