Ravens Baseball Team Soars To Championship
Ravens Baseball Team Soars To Championship
The Newtown Ravens defeated the Newtown Pirates 11-1 to win the 15U/14U baseball championship at Newtown High School on Saturday. Game highlights, including semifinal results, are as follows:
Ravens 11, Pirates 1: Parker Lintz was the winning pitcher, yielding just one run over the first three innings. Lintz gave up a first-inning hit, and then he, Kyle Wilcox, Nicky Sajovic and Michael Koch didnât allow any others. Wilcox struck out all three batters he faced.
The Pirates jumped out to a 1-0 first-inning lead when Ryan Daignault walked, Richie Sandler crushed a double to left field and Sean Dardine slapped an RBI grounder.
In the bottom of the inning, Piratesâ center fielder Chad Magoulas nailed Cole Baldino with a strong throw to the plate. But Michael Koch singled and Kyle Wilcox walked, and both scored on errors to give the Ravens a 2-1 lead. The Ravens scored three more runs in the third inning on four walks, a blistering single by James Rebman and an RBI grounder by Stefan Hennessey.
In the fifth inning, a Pirates rally was squelched when Sajovic fielded a grounder, looked the runner back to third and threw to first baseman Ben Stoller for an out. Stoller threw a strike to the plate where catcher Connor Blanc tagged the runner to complete a double play.
The Ravens put the game away with six sixth-inning runs. Lintz singled and Sajovic successfully beat out a beautiful bunt down the third base line. They scored on a two-RBI single by Baldino. Two other runners scored on errors and Connor Blanc finished the damage with a two-RBI double.
Newtown Ravens 7 Newtown Bucs 2: Winning pitcher Parker Lintz surrendered just one run over three innings, and Michael Koch followed with three shutout innings as the Ravens won the semifinal playoff game under the lights last week at Fairfield Hills Field.
Lintz yielded just two hits and a walk, and Koch gave up one hit and two walks while striking out seven. The Bucsâ Ryan Pavlicek ripped an RBI single to right field for a 1-0 second-inning lead.
But the Ravensâ John Hampford smashed a two-RBI single down the left-field line to score Lintz and Nicky Sajovic, who had reached on errors, and the Ravens never looked back. Stefan Hennessey and Ben Stoller each knocked in runs with sharp singles, and Stoller stole second, third and home to bring in another run.
The gameâs defensive gem came in the second inning when right-fielder Sajovic charged in to pick up Pavlicekâs RBI single, threw to cutoff man Lintz, and Lintz pegged to catcher Wilcox to nail a runner at the plate.
Lintz, a third baseman, became a strong pitcher with a good pickoff move. He led the team with 48 innings pitched and a 2.79 earned run average. He surrendered just 42 hits and 24 walks, and struck out 32 batters. Lintz was helped by a Ravens offense with a .300 team batting average. Ben Stoller, rebounding from a broken finger that sidelined him for several games at the start of the season, led the team with a .400 average on 18 hits in 45 at-bats. Stoller led the team in hits and RBIs (15), had a .509 on-base percentage and committed the fewest errors. Leadoff hitter Cole Baldino finished with the highest on-base percentage, .568, and scored 25 runs. Michael Koch was second with a .545 on-base percentage, and led the team with 29 runs scored. Nicky Sajovic had a brilliant season with the second-highest batting average, .348, 21 runs scored, a .507 on-base percentage and excellent defense at shortstop and center field.