First baseman Ryan Gothers celebrates another successful inning with pitcher Jordan Whaley Monday night in South Windsor. Simsbury remained alive with an 8-1 decision.
SOUTH WINDSOR, July 27 – Even Thomas E. Vincent, Simsbury’s American Legion baseball manager, admitted that Saturday’s 11-inning loss to RCP (Rocky Hill/Cromwell/Portland) was a crushing loss. Post 84 gave up a two-run lead in the eighth inning and let a one-run lead in the 11th inning slip away, too.
Simsbury has been aching to take the field against RCP again. But before they could do that, they had to win two games. Ryan Gothers of East Granby made his first start of the summer for Post 84 and pitched seven strong innings Sunday to help Simsbury eliminate host South Windsor.
On Monday night, it was Jordan Whaley’s time to step up. Whaley went eight strong innings, scattering four hits and striking out six to lead Simsbury to an 8-1 win over New London at Rotary Field. The victory pushes Simsbury (25-4) into the championship game of the Northern Division against RCP, the defending Northeast Regional champion.
Simsbury will have to beat RCP (25-3) twice but at least Post 84 has the opportunity. And they will have their two strongest pitchers ready to go. Peter Myers (5-0), the right-hander from Canton and The Master’s School, will start on Tuesday night at 6:30 p.m. Should Simsbury prevail, a winner-take-all game against RCP will be Wednesday night at Rotary Field with Matthew Gill (4-1) scheduled to pitch for Post 84.
Jordan Whaley went eight innings and threw 93 pitches to earn his fifth win of the summer.
“We’re bulldogs. That’s our mentality,” Whaley said. “One loss won’t affect us. We’ve been doing this all year. Even though we had a tough game, a chippy game (against RCP), we know we can come back and win this tournament.”
Added Vincent, “We lost that (RCP) game and they want to show that (Simsbury) is the best team. That is (our) mentality. It was a crushing loss but this team has bounced back all year. I expected it from these guys.”
Simsbury took care of business early against New London (21-11), scoring five runs in the first two innings to deflate their opposition. Gothers’ RBI single in the first scored Jack Patrina, who singled, stole second base and moved to third on a ground ball out.
In the second inning, Post 84 scored on a RBI single from Jack Nedorostek and a RBI bunt single from Jake King. Two more runs scored on a New London error. “We had some productive at-bats today from a lot of guys,” Vincent said. “We had (New London) under constant pressure in each inning.”
Jake Nichols went 4-for-4 with two RBI for Simsbury while Nedorostek, Whaley, King, Patrina and Jacob Cassano each had two hits. Post 84 rapped out 15 hits and they had another nine in the 8-0 win over South Windsor on Sunday. The final four batters in Simsbury’s batting order were a combined 10-for-17 in the game.
Whaley, who shouldered much of the load this spring with the Simsbury High baseball team, used first pitch strikes to get ahead of the hitters. “He really kept them off balance and pitched an outstanding game,” Vincent said. “He was ahead in the count throughout the game. He had everything going today.”
Simsbury 1B Ryan Gothers tries to get the tag on New London’s Gabby Cortorreal in Monday night’s playoff game in South Windsor. Cortorreal was safe.
NOTES: SImsbury will be without Canton’s Jake Wood for the remainder of the tournament. He injured his hamstring late in Saturday’s loss to RCP trying to run out a hit. The injury was severe enough that he left the field in an ambulance. He was in full uniform Monday but with a pair of crutches to help him move around. Wood played first base, catcher and DH for Post 84 this summer. … RCP beat Simsbury a year ago in the Northern Division regional, 7-2. … Whaley picked off two New London runners off first base — one in the third inning and one in the fifth inning. Simsbury had one runner picked off first base.
Simsbury 8, New London 1
At South Windsor
New London (21-11) 000 000 100 –1-6-4
Simsbury (25-4) 140 210 00x — 8-14-0
Ian Cekala, Gabriel Cortorreal (4) and Max Seifert; Jordan Whaley, Gavin McConnell (9) and Mike Amato; WP: Whaley (5-2), LP: Cekala; 2B: none; 3B: none; HR: none
Northern Division finals
At South Windsor (Rotary Field)
Saturday, July 25
Game 1: New London 2, South Windsor 0
Game 2: RCP 4, Simsbury 3 (11)
Sunday, July 26
Game 5: Simsbury 8, South Windsor 0
Game 6: RCP 5, New London 1
Monday, July 27
Game 9: Simsbury 8, New London 1
Tuesday, July 28
Game 11: Final — Simsbury vs. RCP, 6:30 p.m.
Wednesday, July 29
Game 13: Final — Simsbury vs. RCP, 6 p.m., if necessary
State championship
At Palmer Field, Middletown
Friday, July 31
Game 1: Northern Division champion vs. Southern Division champion, 6:30 p.m.
Saturday, August 1
Game 2: 11 a.m.
Game 3, 2:30 p.m., if necessary
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