Big 3rd inning propels Red Raiders

TORRINGTON — On a sneaky cold day turned frigid by the end, Torrington’s Red Raider baseball team (2-2, 1-2 NVL) parlayed nine singles into a 7-5 win over the Red Raiders from Derby (1-3, 0-2) Thursday afternoon at Torrington’s Fuessenich Park.

“They did just enough. We bore down when we had to,” Torrington coach Pat Richardson said.

Both teams got help from a pair of gritty starting pitchers — junior Ben Richardson for Torrington and sophomore Ray Queen for Derby – with a combined total of six walks and six hit batters.

But the difference came when Torrington put it together for five runs in the third inning on the game’s only error, two walks and three hits.

“We finally had the inning we’ve been looking for,” said Richardson, after his team came up just short against league favorite Holy Cross (3-0 loss) and Oxford (2-1 loss) earlier this week.

“Every game, there are a lot of positives,” Torrington senior catcher Cam Cerruto said after throwing out two Derby runners and joining Derby’s Damian Caruso as Thursday’s only multiple hitters with two apiece.

Meanwhile, the name of the game for Derby is “gritty”. The southern Raiders play without a home field this year while theirs is being renovated.

“Our motto is ‘adapt and

overcome’, said third-year coach Steve Bainer, whose team is already used to climbing on the bus for every game. “The upper class kids are the ones I came in with and we play gritty and hard.”

That’s shown up in an opening-day pounding over Whitney Tech (18-3), a 5-4 loss to Kolbe Cathedral and a 12-7 loss to St. Paul Catholic.

“We’re a good team that has to get better every day. We’ve been good and bad so far,” Bainer said.

Both teams showed their positives and negatives in the first three innings. Despite a one-out triple by Derby’s Tom Abel in the top of the inning, Torrington took a 1-0 lead in the first on a walk to Richardson and an RBI groundout by Mike Paniati. Derby was back with two runs in the top of the third on three walks, a hit batter and sacrifice fly by Tony Slowik.

Then the northern Raiders had their inning. Queen loaded the bases on an infield error, a walk and a single by James Gaskins, no outs. Jake Nilsson walked one run in. Singles by Casey Navin and Aaron Bainer and RBI groundouts from Kyle Banche and C.J. Root poured in four more.

A 6-2 Torrington lead meant “hang on” this game. Torrington added another run in the fourth on hits by Cerruto and Paniati, then fended off two more Derby runs in the fifth on a hit batter, single by Chris Oliwa and two-run double by Matt Oliwa (3 RBIs for the day).

C.J. Root pitched the final two innings for Torrington, delivering a final strikeout after giving up a walk and his only hit — an RBI single from Caruso.

“I’ve got a lot of things to work on, but I’m happy as long as we win,” Richardson said.

“I threw that last pitch a little harder,” grinned Root.