Senior Baseball League Highlights

Newtown Lightning 16-19 year old Connecticut Senior Baseball League highlights from this past week are as follows:

Lightning 11, Amity 5: Austin Ekstrom drilled two doubles and was the winning pitcher as the Lightning upset undefeated Amity Sunday at Fairfield Hills Field to move into a first-place tie in the Connecticut Senior Baseball League.

Trailing 1-0 in the second inning against Amity, which won the championship last spring, Ekstrom lined a double down the right field line, scoring Eric Sutton and John Lebinski, each of whom had walked. Newtown, which has a 3-1 record, never trailed again. Ekstrom held Amity to one run before needing relief help in the sixth inning. Sutton relieved and pitched brilliantly for the save.

Newtown’s Scott Cunningham slashed an RBI single, and Brandon Cooper walked with the bases loaded to drive in two other second-inning runs. Center fielder Wyatt Depuy played an outstanding game, making a headlong, diving catch for the final out with two runners on base in the fourth inning. Earlier in the inning, with a runner trying to steal second, Newtown made a nifty double play. Shortstop Sutton flipped to second baseman Ryan O’Keefe, who made a beautiful pivot to avoid the oncoming runner and threw to first baseman Ben Stoller for the twin killing. Depuy also crushed a bases-loaded double for important insurance runs in the fifth inning. Stoller and Sutton scored two runs each for the victors.

 Ridgefield 16, Newtown Lightning 3: Without its starting pitching staff and several top hitters, a depleted nine-man Newtown team got walloped Saturday in Ridgefield. Newtown’s pitchers could not locate the strike zone, walking 15 batters in four innings before the game was called because of the 10-run rule in the fifth inning. Newtown’s only bright spots were Ben Stoller who lined a single, stole two bases and scored two runs, and Brandon Cooper, who caught an outstanding game behind the plate and then pitched 1 1/3 innings without walking a batter.