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By Ron P. Coderre
At the star of the 2013 Zone VI American Legion season in early June the TriTown Sr. and Jr. teams were aiming for spots in the Connecticut postseason tournament. Although both teams went down to the wire, scrapping all the way, they fell shy of their preseason goal.
The Sr. unit, which finished its 27-game schedule with a respectable 8-19 record, concluded its season by winning its final three-game set with victories over Ledyard-Pawcatuck. Proving that its pitching was equal others in the Zone, the Towners posted a pair of shutouts in the final three contests.
The Jr. Team, needing to win all three of its games against the Ledyard-Pawcatuck Jr. team to move into postseason play was able to pick up only one victory in the final three-game set. Unfortunately for the team they had the opportunity but miscues led to their ultimate downfall. They concluded the season with a 6-10 log.
Sr. Team Rolls Through Final Set
Playing what was probably its most consistent baseball of the entire summer, the TriTown Sr. Team started the final week with strong pitching and bats blazing. Behind the serves of lanky right hander Garrett Ponte the Towners put it all together with a 10-0 drubbing of Ledyard-Pawcatuck. Ponte was the star on the hill, limiting L-P to only one hit while striking out 10 opposing batters. At the bat he contributed three doubles in helping himself to the victory.
The following evening the game started as though the L-P team would provide TriTown with the mirror image of its previous night’s win. The visiting L-P team, thanks to some shoddy play behind TriTown pitcher Ty Anderson, jumped out to a 7-0 first inning lead.
The Towners bounced back with two runs of their own in the bottom of the first frame and five more runs in the second inning to knot the score at seven all. In the third inning the Towners went ahead 8-7 and appeared in control after scoring one more run in the sixth inning.
L-P rallied for two runs in the seventh inning before young Jim Cutler came on in relief to quell the rally. Moving to extra innings, Coach Paul Faucher called on his closer, Tim Cutler, Jim’s older brother, who closed the door on L-P giving TriTown a hard fought, much deserved 10-9 victory. The victory went to Jim Cutler in relief.
Ben Brissette led the hitting parade for the Towners with a double and a triple, which produced two runs batted in. Sean Falvey also had a double. J.P. Bergeron, who has come on strongly as the season progressed, was credited with a pair of hits and two RBIs including the go-ahead run with a suicide squeeze in the sixth inning. Tim Cutler and Mike Thienel also had two hits and two RBIs apiece.
In the closing contest of the season, the Towners settled in behind the pitching of ace Mike Thienel as he threw a complete game 5-0 shutout at L-P. In going the route, Thienel limited his opponents to four hits, while striking out five. Josh Malboeuf had two hits and Ben Guimont doubled in the winning cause.
The three victories secured a seventh place finish in Zone VI for TriTown.
Jr. Towners Squander Opportunity
In a week where victories were of the utmost importance for the TriTown Jr. Team, they were unable to capitalize on opportunities and squandered the chance of playing in the State postseason tourney as they dropped two of three games to Ledyard-Pawcatuck.
The week started well as the Jr. squad opened with a 1-0 shutout behind a gutsy pitching performance by Ryan Gadoury. Laboring through a complete game performance in the heat, Gadoury yielded only three hits while striking out six opposing hitters.
The TriTown 11-hit offensive attack was led by Nick Foucault who had three hits and Evan Tremblay and Jared Carignan who had two hits apiece.
In the second game of the set, the Towners let victory slip through their fingers as an error in the seventh inning opened the door for two unearned runs by L-P and paved the way to the 8-6 victory. In the bottom half of the final frame the Jr. Team lost all heart and the game going down 1-2-3.
With one more chance for the State Tournament in their grasp the Towners let a complete game effort by Nick Foucault go to waste as miscues and walks allowed L-P to score three unearned runs in a 3-0 win. The two final victories for L-P raised their record to 8-8, while TriTown closed out the season at 6-10.