Redcoat Baseball Team Breaks Two Game Losing Streak

This article written and reported by Rick Volk

Behind a one-hitter from Connor Bennett, Berlin broke a two-game losing streak, downing the Stafford High Bulldogs 8-2, Saturday, at Sage Park.

Bennett, yielded only two first-inning unearned runs, fanned eight Stafford hitters and notched his third victory of the season. Daren Grabowski led the Berlin attack with a game-tying home run which cleared the left-centerfield wall in the third, a first inning triple, and three runs scored.

With Berlin clinging to a one-run lead, Grabowski led off the decisive fifth inning with a walk, later scoring on Mitch Wllliams’s groundout. Dan McLeod’s single to right was misplayed, with both Greg Konowski and Kyle Naples scoring. Dante Vasi tripled to score McLeod and came home on Jeff Sylvester’s groundout for the inning’s fifth run.

Stafford’s Zach Rollins’s first-inning triple blasted off the fence highlighted Stafford’s two-run first inning.

Berlin’s six-run margin was a 2013 anomaly. Of the Redcoats’ prior six games, five were decided by one run and the other was a 10-inning duel with Bristol Central.

The season heats up with three games on tap for next week. The Redcoats, now 4-3 on the season, host Bristol Eastern on Monday and Platt on Wednesday before a Friday road game against Bulkeley at Colt Park, Hartford

• Daren Grabowski cf 2-3-2
  
• Greg Konowski rf 3-2-1
  
• Mitch Williams 3b 4-0-2
  
• Kyle Naples ss 2-1-0
  
• Dave Condon rf 2-0-0
  
• Dan McLeod rf 1-1-1
  
• Dante Vasi lb 3-1-2
  
• Jeff Sylvester eh 2-0-0
  
• Jordan Zima c 3-0-1
  
• Alec Norton 2b 3-0-0 
  
• 3B: Grabowski, Vasi
  
• HR: Grabowski
  
• RBI: Grabowski, Naples, Wllliams, McLeod, Vasi, Sylvester
  
• SF: Naples 
  
• Connor Bennett (3-0) 7 IP, 1 H, 2 R, 0 ER, 0 BB, 8 K