Lightning Senior Baseball Playoff Results

The Newtown Lightning, of the Connecticut Senior Baseball League, competed in the 19U playoffs this past week. Results are as follows:

Lightning 9, Shelton 4: Trailing 3-2 with only one out remaining in its season, Newtown found a way to tie the game in the seventh inning and score six more runs in the ninth inning to capture third place and knock Shelton out of the nine-team double-elimination tournament at Naugatuck High School.

It was a sweet victory for the Lightning, playing without nine players on its original summer roster, overcoming the top pitcher on Shelton High School’s state champion team and avenging a playoff loss to Shelton last summer.

Newtown jumped out to a 1-0 first-inning lead when David Lucia singled, stole second and scored on Alex Lapinski’s sizzling RBI single to center field.

 In the third inning, with Newtown leading 1-0, Ryan Pisani walked and Eric Sutton doubled to center. Shelton High School’s Ryan Daiss, who will pitch next season for Georgia Southern University, was brought in to pitch. Daiss, whose Shelton High team eliminated Newtown High School in this year’s state tournament, had an 0.94 earned run average and 80 strikeouts in 59 innings as the Gaels won the Class LL state championship. Newtown’s Ben Stoller, though, crushed an 85 miles per hour fastball to center for an RBI single that scored Pisani. Stoller stole second but was stranded when Lucia and Lapinski grounded out.

Newtown pitcher Bobby Archiere shut out Shelton for the first four innings, yielding two hits, two walks and striking out five. Daiss struck out four of his next five batters before walking Austin Ekstrom, yielding a line single to Ryan Pisani and retiring Eric Sutton on a fly to center to end Newtown’s fifth inning.

In the bottom of the inning, Archiere walked three batters. One scored on a wild pitch and two scored on errors. Shelton replaced Daiss with John Murphy, who shut out Newtown in the sixth inning.

Murphy got John Lebinski to fly to center for the first out in the seventh inning and then walked Sam Czel, playing his first game for the Lightning. The 14-year-old Czel, who had doubled in his first at bat, walked, stole second and took off for third base after Alex Saviano grounded out to the pitcher. Shelton first baseman Evan Peck, who plays for Mitchell College and was a former top player on Shelton High School’s powerful varsity team two years ago, bounced his throw to third into left field, allowing Czel to score with the tying run.

Newtown relief pitcher Eric Pisani, who threw a shutout sixth inning, hurled two more scoreless innings and set the stage for the Lightning’s ninth-inning outburst. Stoller led off with an infield single and took a big lead, getting ready to steal. Shelton relief pitcher Jared Peck threw wildly to first, trying to pick off Stoller. The throw went into right field, and Stoller raced to third. He scored when Lucia, a starting outfielder for the Newtown High varsity in the spring, crushed an RBI double to deep right center.

Lucia later scored on a wild pitch that also moved John Lebinski, who had walked, to second. Czel drilled a single to center that was booted by the center fielder and allowed Lebinski to score. Czel stole second and came home on Saviano’s RBI single up the middle. Saviano stole second, and scored on Eric Pisani’s long RBI double to left center. Pisani reached home on a wild pitch. On the mound, he got out of a bases-loaded jam in the bottom of the ninth inning by inducing a fly ball that left fielder Saviano caught for the final out.

Watertown 5 Newtown Lightning 0: Newtown didn’t have enough firepower to overcome Watertown pitcher Rob Valunas at Naugatuck High School. Valunas, a sophomore pitcher at Western Connecticut State University, yielded one hit and five walks, and struck out eight batters during the first five innings. The lone hit was a single to right field by Jim Parker.

Newtown’s only other hit was a single to right field by John Lebinski against relief pitcher Cody Gagnon.

Parker struggled with his control and got weak defensive support but continued to battle and pitched a complete game.

After long careers in the Newtown Baseball program, the game may have been the final one for Newtown first baseman Ben Stoller, shortstop Austin Ekstrom and third baseman Eric Sutton. Stoller and Ekstrom, who have played since kindergarten or pre-kindergarten, are headed to the University of Connecticut, and Sutton is off to St. Francis College in Brooklyn. Lucia, the Lightning’s top hitter who played baseball and basketball at Newtown High School, will be heading to the University of Montana.