Third Straight State Championship—

Thunder Struck … New Canaan Stunned By Thunder In Dramatic Title Game

By Andy Hutchison

It took three days, two games, and a pair of extra innings on top of it all. The teams combined for 38 runs, including 23 in the decisive game. In the end, the Newtown Thunder came out on top, prevailing 12-11 over New Canaan to win the Cal Ripken 11U 50/70 state championship at Glander Field on July 30.

New Canaan had forced a winner-take-all game with an 8-7 victory that began on Thursday, July 28, and was halted because of darkness and resumed the next day. Just after the game, the teams played for all of the marbles to cap the double elimination tourney, and rain stopped play with Newtown ahead 7-4 in the second inning. On Saturday, they finally finished business with Newtown escaping a couple of big extra-frame jams en route to its third consecutive state title. Both teams will compete in the New England Regional Tournament beginning this weekend.

Newtown, despite hosting the tourney, was the “away” team and batted first in the final game. The Thunder scored the eventual winning run in the top of the eighth inning when Ben Harrison led off with an infield single, was sacrificed by Sam Grossano, and scored on a long single to center field by Connor Barrett. The clutch hit came moments after the New Canaan left fielder robbed Dylan Champagne of an RBI with an all-out diving catch near the line.

In the last of the eighth, New Canaan did not go down quietly. Newtown pitcher Ben Dieckman, who came on in relief to put out a fire in the seventh, got out of his own jam to end it. New Canaan had runners on second and third but couldn’t tie the game. Newtown third baseman Lucas O’Brien fielded a grounder and threw home to catcher Harrison for a tag play and the second out. Dieckman ended the threat with his third strikeout, prompting a celebration between the pitcher’s mound and home plate.

Barrett was 3-for-6 with three runs batted in, O’Brien went 3-for-4, including a home run, with three RBI, and Ryan Kost was 3-for-4 and scored four times.

Jason Hebner and O’Brien combined to fan nine batters in their work on the mound. O’Brien and Dieckman each struck out Robby Jones, who had been a tough out, hitting one of New Canaan’s three home runs in the final game. Matt Burger, who was 4-for-4 and drove in five runs, hit one of his two long balls when New Canaan was down to its final out, a two-run shot to tie the game at 11 apiece in the sixth.

New Canaan nearly won the game in the seventh, but Kost, after hitting Trevor Donnelly with a pitch, got an out on a sacrifice, struck out a hitter, issued a two-out walk, and turned the ball over to Dieckman with runners on the corners. Dieckman, a lefty, got a strikeout to give Newtown another inning of life.

The Thunder struck for an early 2-0 lead as O’Brien hit a first-inning homer to left. New Canaan came right back with a two-run homer off the bat of Jones before Newtown piled on five second-inning runs. Barrett, Hebner, Dieckman, and Adam Bergeron all drove in runs, and another scored on a wild throw.

New Canaan started to chip away when Mother Nature’s version of thunder, and rain, put the game on hold for an evening. The bats stayed hot under the sun the next day. After New Canaan pulled to within 7-6, Newtown answered with three in the third as Kost, Hebner, and Barrett all plated runners. After New Canaan got back to within a run at 10-9, O’Brien singled home Kost for an 11-9 lead in the fifth.

O’Brien, Hebner, and Dieckman were selected to the All Tournament Team.