Cheshire Eliminated by Trumbull in American Legion Junior Tournament

Trumbull's Kyle Buckwald kept Cheshire's bats ice cold on a sweltering Sunday afternoon throwing a three-hitter as Cheshire Post 92 fell to Trumbull Post 141 10-0 in an American Legion Junior tournament play-in game at Burt Leventhal Field in Cheshire.

The game was shortened to six innings by the mercy rule. After five innings, a 10-run margin ends the game.

Buckwald was only in trouble once in the fourth inning. After holding Cheshire hitless through the first three and with Trumbull up 3-0, Buckwald gave up a leadoff single to Alex Augusto, followed by a double to Matt Muzyka that put men on second and third with no outs.

Buckwald, who struck out five and walked three, calmly retired the side in order from there ending it with a strikeout of Kyle Waldron.

"He pitched a good game. He moved the ball in. It didn't look like too much from the outside but  he was moving the ball in and out and his off-speed (pitch) had us a little baffled," Cheshire head coach John Escoto said. "They played well. We broke four bats today. That's testament to how he's pitching."

Cheshire's other hit came in the sixth on a leadoff single by Augusto. But Buckwald then struck out Muzyka and Paul Bronte, and Augusto made the third out on an attempted steal of second that ended the game.

"We took a chance. We went out there with our No. 2 pitcher, hoping to get to Niantic tomorrow, who is the No. 1 seed in the tournament," Trumbull head coach Brett Conner said. "And Kyle was great all year, our pitching has been the backbone of our whole team. He didn't let us down today. He did a real nice job.

"In the fourth inning when they had guys on second and third no outs, he battled his tail off and got us out of there with no runs. Our Nos. 1 through 4 have been tremendous all year long. We're looking forward to Niantic tomorrow."

Trumbull's hitters also did the job. Trumbull (21-7)  broke it open in the fourth, scoring five runs with two outs to take a commanding 8-0 lead. Simon Whiteman drove in one run with a single with the bases loaded and Joe Barber and Anthony Hernandez each drove in two, also with singles.

"What really hurt us was they scored a bunch of runs when the count was 0-and-2 and we threw a fastball down the middle," Escoto said. "(The hitters) are hyper-vigilant at that point and if you just put it right over for them, we talked to the boys about it. That has not been an issue for most of the year.  But all three pitchers (today) all did the same thing."

Colin Murphy started and lasted 1  1/3 innings, allowing three runs on one hit and two walks, for Cheshire (12-7). Nick D'Annolfo (three runs, four hits, two walks) came on in relief and was effective through two innings before the five-run fourth. Kyle Hodgdon (four runs, five hits, two strikeouts) went the rest of the way.

"We were a young team, but a scrappy bunch," Escoto said. "They were fun to coach. We didn't get the bats going today. We've been that way all year long. We were either really on or off. There wasn't a lot of in-between. Many games this year we scored more runs than we did last year. We broke double-digits a few times. But when it goes away, it goes away. But pitching that has something to do with it."