West Hartford Legion wins first state championship since 1973
The West Hartford American Legion baseball team won their first state championship since 1973 Saturday in Middletown. (Photo courtesy Rob Hanawalt)
The West Hartford American Legion baseball team put the pressure on defending state champion Danbury to make plays in game two of the 2023 state American Legion state championship series.
Post 68 made six errors, had two wild pitches and gave up six unearned runs as West Hartford captured their first Legion state championship in a half century with a 10-1 decision Saturday at Palmer Field in Middletown.
West Hartford swept the best-of-3 championship series, 2-0 and won their first Legion title since 1973. Post 96 beat Danbury on Friday night, 6-1. The Zone 3 champions (24-5) advance to next week’s Northeast Regional championship tournament in Worcester, Massachusetts.
On Saturday, starting pitcher Brandon Grady got the job done, throwing a complete game, giving up six hits and fanning five. At the plate, Grady was 2-for-3 with one RBI.
Matt Santoro was 2-for-2 with one RBI for West Hartford while Declan McCann was 2-for-4. Tristan Baron had a triple and drove in three runs. West Hartford had four bunts for hits in the game and reached bases on errors on two other bunt attempts.
On Friday night, Tyler Redden was 3-for-4 with a double and one RBI for West Hartford with Chase Hanawalt, Mason Hebert and Myles Fournier each getting two hits. Hanawalt had two hits and two RBI. Hebert pitched five innings and struck out four to earn the win for Post 96.
West Hartford had 11 hits in Friday night’s win while giving up just three to Danbury (25-5).
It was the first appearance in the finals for West Hartford since getting swept by Stamford in the 2017 championship series, 2-0.
West Hartford previously won state titles in 1973, 1961, 1960 and 1959. Post 96 did capture the 1959 and 1961 Northeast Regional championship and advanced to the American Legion World Series both seasons.
West Hartford 10, Danbury 1
At Middletown
Danbury (25-5) 010 000 0 — 1-6-6
West Hartford (24-5) 014 401 x — 10-10-0
Charlie Solimine, Thai-ler Sestoksas (3), Nick Callari (5) and Tom Pilla; Brandon Grady and Tyler Redden, Matt Morehouse (6); WP: Grady; LP: Solimine; 2B: Chase Hanawalt (WH), 3B: Tristan Baron (WH)
West Hartford 6, Danbury 1
At Middletown
West Hartford (23-5) 200 004 0 — 6-11-1
Danbury (25-4) 001 000 0 — 1-3-2
Mason Hebert, Tristan Baron (6) and Tyler Redden; Ditscher, Setstokas (7) and Pilla; WP: Hebert; LP: Ditscher; 2B: Redden (WH)