Newtown 9s Having Success In New Englands

Newtown’s 9-year-old baseball team began play in the New England Regional Tournament in Dover, NH this past weekend.

On Friday there was a skills competition held between the eight qualifying teams. Newtown just missed second place and came in third on a tiebreaker. There were four events. Around the horn is a throwing contest that Newtown won. Adam Bergeron, Lucas O’Brien, Jason Hebner and Ben Harrison were the Newtown winners. In the base running competition the four following players came in second by a half of a second after a debatable two-second penalty for missing a base: Connor Barrett, Nick Venezia, Will Huegi and Sam Grossano.  

Newtown’s first game was Saturday morning against the Rhode Island State Champion, Cranston.

Newtown won the game 13-4. Lucas O’Brien and Colby Olson pitched three innings each, both allowing only two runs. Newtown jumped out to a lead in the first inning by scoring four runs on two walks, a single by Jason Hebner, and a triple by RH Clark. In the fourth inning, Newtown scored five more runs on singles by Connor Barrett, Lucas O’Brien, Adam Bergeron, Jason Hebner and Will Huegi. Ben Dieckman also ripped a two-RBI single in the fifth inning.

On Sunday, Newtown played the Western Mass State Champion, Sutton and came back to win 5-3. Going into this game Sutton was undefeated this summer. Sutton opened up a 2-0 lead in the first inning and added one more for a 3-0 lead in the second. Sutton’s ace pitched the first three innings and gave up two hits over the first two innings. O’Brien opened the third inning with a triple and was driven in on a a single by Olson. Newtown scored another fun in the fourth on a single by Grossano who singled, stole second and third and scored on a single by Barrett. Newtown finally took the lead in the fifth inning on singles by Bergeron, Hebner, Venezia and Huegi. Bergeron won game MVP honors after coming in to pitch three shutout innings of relief for the win.

The victory put Newtown in the winner’s bracket finals against tournament favorite Exeter, NH. Exeter is the state Champion and took first place in the skills competition.

Like Sutton, Exeter is also undefeated this summer. Due to rain, the game, originally scheduled for Tuesday, was postponed to Wednesday evening (after The Bee sports section went to press).