Avon Legion hands Zone 1 leader Bristol a 4-0 defeat

Avon’s Nick Amatulli had a RBI double in Monday night’s 4-0 Zone 1 win over Bristol at Buckingham Field.

Timely hitting and solid pitching helped the Avon American Legion baseball team win for the fourth time in their last five games with a 4-0 win over Zone 1 leader Bristol on Monday night at Buckingham Field in Avon.

Post 201 pitchers Daniel Bae and Luke Coppen combined to throw Avon’s second shutout of the season. The two pitchers combined to allow just six hits and strike out four batters – two in the seventh inning with runners on first and second base.

Avon (10-6) took a 1-0 lead in the fifth inning. Ed Jankoski singled to right field and moved to third on a successful sacrifice bunt from Coppen. Jankoski scored on a Nick Amatulli’s RBI double.

In the sixth, Avon extended their lead. Max Raha led off the winning with a double and scored on Emmett Borenstein’s RBI single to left field. Borenstein gave Avon a 3-0 lead scoring on an error and a sacrifice fly from Jankoski drove in the fourth run.

Raha and Jankoski were each 2-for-3 for Post 201.

The victory begins a busy week – the final week of the regular season – for Avon. Post 201 travels to Naugatuck on Tuesday and travels to West Hartford on Thursday. Avon hosts Newington on Friday night at 5:30 p.m. and has a non-zone contest at Palmer Field in Middletown set for Sunday at 6:30 p.m.

With the win, Avon took the three-game season series with Bristol, 2-1.

Bristol (13-5) has a one game lead over Meriden (11-5) in the race for the Zone 1 championship. West Hartford (10-5) is 1½ games back with Avon fourth at 10-6, two games off the pace.

The regular season ends on Sunday, August 1 with a 32-team single elimination state tournament beginning on Tuesday, August 3.

Bristol misses out on Northeast qualifying tournament
Some fans wondered why Bristol missed out on the Northeast Regional qualifying tournament that is being held this week. Ten teams were selected to play for Connecticut’s spot in the Northeast Regional tournament, which begins in Worcester, Mass., on August 3.

Meriden and West Hartford were selected as the two representatives from Zone 1. Games played through last Wednesday, July 21, were considered in determining the bids, according to state American Legion chairman David Greenleaf.

At that point of the season, Bristol and Meriden were 11-4 with West Hartford at 10-5. To be fair, Zone 1 used just first two games against each zone opponent which gave each team a record of 10-4, Greenleaf said.

Zone 1 deployed a series of tiebreaking measures to break the deadline and determine the two participants in the qualifying tournament.

Bristol, Meriden and West Hartford were each 1-1 against each other. The next highest Zone 1 team was Avon and all three teams were 1-1 against Post 201. The next team was Naugatuck and Meriden and West Hartford each went 2-0 against Post 17 while Bristol was 1-1, eliminating them from the regional tournament.

Avon 4, Bristol 0
At Avon
Bristol (13-5)      000  000  0 –  0-6-2
Avon (10-6)        000  013  x  — 4-7-1
Matthew Beaucar and Owen Davis; Daniel Bae, Luke Coppen (7) and Emmett Borenstein; WP: Bae (4-3); LP: Beaucar; 2B: Max Raha (A), Nick Amatulli (A), Andrew Lozier (B)