Oxford fends off Holy Cross in 7th for NVL title
WATERBURY — The night had belonged to Nick Cerreto and the Oxford baseball team.
Cerreto carried a shutout into the seventh inning of Wednesday’s Naugatuck Valley League championship game against Holy Cross at Municipal Stadium.
His teammates got him an insurance run in the top half. Coronation was right around the corner.
And it was still waiting there in the end, just with a whole lot of anxious minutes in between.
Down by three, No. 2 Holy Cross rallied to within one and put the tying run at third base with two outs. But No. 5-seeded Oxford held on for a 3-2 victory.
Shortstop Kyle Donlon came on in relief of Cerreto to get the two final outs after Holy Cross had closed to within 3-2, inducing a ground out and then getting a strikeout on a 3-2 count.
Donlon threw a high fastball. Holy Cross’ Drew Caouette tipped it. Oxford catcher Xavier Carlson held on to secure the win.
“I trusted Donny,” Carlson said. “I knew he was going to throw that strike, so I called gas and he threw it.”
The NVL championship was the second for Oxford. The first came in 2016, also at the expense of Holy Cross, a league stalwart that was gunning for its 14th title and third in four years.
Woodland, the defending champion, wasn’t around to defend its title. That’s because Oxford took down the Hawks 4-2 in Monday’s semifinals.
Oxford (15-8) also beat St. Paul in the quarterfinals. All three of Oxford’s league tournament victims — St. Paul, Woodland and Holy Cross — had defeated the Wolverines in the regular season.
‘We were going on a little tour trying to get our wins back,” said Oxford athletic director Joe Stochmal, acting as baseball coach for the night. “That was our mantra for tonight. The kids came our here and played their hearts out. Credit to the kids. They won this game today.”
Stochmal was filling in for head coach Matt Renzoni, who was “not available” Wednesday, Stochmal said, adding that he could not elaborate.
Meanwhile, the Wolverines gave multiple icebucket baths to Cerreto, the right-handed bulldog who struck out 10. He kept Holy Cross (18-5) hitless until the sixth.
“I know many of the guys, the seniors, were overdue; they beat us in the semifinals our sophomore year,” said Cerreto. “We just wanted this real bad.”
Cerreto worked out of a two-out, two-on jam in the sixth inning to keep the shutout intact, getting a swing and a miss with runners at second and third after a passed ball on a previous strikeout extended the inning.
He could not do the same in the seventh, when Holy Cross first baseman Logan Brown roped a two-run double down the left field line to score Carston Donovan, who had led off with a double, and Garrett Mowad, who had walked.
“Our kids have played to the last out of every game that we’ve had this season,” Holy Cross head coach Matt Smolley said. “We’ve had tremendous seventh-inning wins, so I knew they had the fight in them.
“When I told them before the bottom of the seventh, ‘All I ask from you guys is that you go out fighting,’ That’s exactly did. I’m proud as hell of these kids.”
Enter Donlon, who delivered with Brown at third, 90 feet away with the tying run.
“We all earned it,” the senior said. “We worked hard and peaked at the right time.”
Oxford staked itself to a 2-0 lead in the top of the second. Cleanup hitter Brando Fletter punched a single through the shortstop hole and eventually reached third.
Holy Cross starter Aiden Bisallion bore down and got the next two batters, but extended the inning with a walk and then had No. 8 hitter Ian Cunningham bear down on him with a liner off his foot that scored Fletter with the first run. Cerreto followed with a RBI single up the middle for the 2-0 lead.
On the hill, Cerreto was a serrated knife, cutting up Holy Cross with six strikeouts through four hitless innings.
Holy Cross finally got to him for a pair of opposite-field hits by catcher Thomas Okesson and pinch-hitter C.J. Hernandez in the fifth, but Cerreto got a pop-up and strikeout in between and ended the inning on another pop to the right side.
Bisallion, meanwhile, had settled down. He scattered three hits over the next four frames to keep his team close.
Prior to the game, the NVL issued its year-end awards. Woodland’s Michael Belcher was named the Most Outstanding Senior and Logan Brown of Holy Cross received the Jeff Goodrich Memorial Sportsmanship Award. Torrington’s Pat Richardson was Coach of the Year and Woodland’s Frank Fedak was Assistant Coach of the Year.
OXFORD 3, HOLY CROSS 2
OXFORD .............. 020 000 1 — 3 8 1 HOLY CROSS ...... 000 000 2 — 2 5 0 Batteries — Oxford: Nick Cerreto, Kyle Donlon (7th) and Xavier Carlson; Holy Cross: Aiden Bisallion, Eli Wall (7th) and Thomas Okesson.