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Sports

Eagles' Hit Parade Eliminates East Granby in Glass S Baseball Tournament

Twenty-one hits with 6-run and 10-run innings lead to 22-3 win in Class S baseball second round for East Catholic.

East Granby advanced to Wednesday’s CIAC Class S second-round state tournament game against East Catholic by using its best pitcher in a first-round game the day before. That meant the Crusaders wouldn’t have all their firepower available against the No. 1 seed in the second round.

The Crusaders would have needed more than all their resources.

First-seeded East Catholic needed two innings to adjust to East Granby’s pitching in a 22-3 victory in Manchester that sends the Eagles (18-3) to the quarterfinals Saturday against No. 8 Cromwell (15-7) at a neutral site and time to be determined. East Granby, the 17th seeded team, finishes it season at 11-10.

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“We had momentum,” East Granby coach Bob Bromage said, following the Crusaders’ 8-0 first-round win over Thomaston. “But today it was David against Goliath. We would have missed with the stone. No, we would have needed a mortar shell."

“We were just overmatched today. Their pitching overpowered us. They’re on a whole other level than we are," Bromage continued. 

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The four East Catholic pitchers – starter Tucker Panciera and relievers Tyler Aprea, Jack Molleur and Jason Smith – limited East Granby to five hits and one walk. They struck out six Crusaders and allowed two runs in the fourth inning, after East Catholic had opened a 7-0 lead, and one in the top of the seventh, by which time it was 22-2. East Catholic committed no errors.

The Eagles’ batters pretty much hit at will. East Catholic's offense combined for 21 hits, two big innings with a six-run third and a 10-run fifth and eight players with multiple hits – Garrett Richardello, who went 2-for-4, Mike McMahon (4-for-5), Kelvin Sims (2-for-4), Aprea (3-for-3), Nick Benoit (2-for-3), Alex Fulco (3-for-4), KC Carone (2-for-3) and John Brownell (2-for-3).

“They hit the heck out of the ball,” Bromage said. “Whatever could go wrong went wrong for us. They hit balls into the gaps. They hit balls in the holes. We had two hit batters all season up to today and today we had five. They didn’t play a Class S team all year. They’re something we’d like to aspire to be.”

East Granby pitchers E.J. Lavoie, the starter, and relievers Jason Byers, who is the ace, Brian Watterlond and Noah Fersch combined to give up four walks.

“We’re conditioned to fastballs,” East Catholic coach Jim Penders said. “There were a couple of miles [per hour] off their fastballs. We had difficulty in the first two innings. We were taking curveballs and swinging and missing. Our team can swing."

The large margin allowed Penders to use his bench and keep Panciera under his 45-pitch limit. Panciera, one of East Catholic’s top batters but hitless on Wednesday, left after three innings, 40 pitches thrown and a 7-0 lead.

Penders believes that few pitchers in the North Central Connecticut Conference, to which East Granby belongs, throw with the velocity found in the Central Connecticut Conference, which is the Eagles’ affiliation. 

Sims, the Eagles' smooth-fielding second baseman and lead-off hitter, said his teammates were focusing on not being overconfident. “You cannot look at the seeds,” Sims said. “All teams are even until you win or lose the game. We’ve seen some good pitching all year and we try not to let that affect us. We kill righties. We take short swings and go the other way and hit where it’s pitched."

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