ON THE HILL — Southington’s C.J. Pierce and Sheehan’s Aidan Caraballo pitched their baseball teams to victory Tuesday in first-round state tournament games.
Cheshire’s Ben Strout also threw a decent game. He just didn’t get any run support as the No. 17 Rams bowed out 3-0 against No. 16 Danbury in Class LL.
The No. 12 Blue Knights advanced in Class LL with their 2-1 victory over No. 21 Glastonbury, while Sheehan, a No. 19 seed, steamed ahead in Class M with a 7-2 victory over No. 14 Windham Tech at the ECSU Complex in Mansfield.
Sheehan (12-10) stays on the road for the second round on Wednesday, this time heading west to face No. 3 Nonnewaug (18-3) in Woodbury.
Southington (14-7), a winner at home Tuesday, boards the bus Wednesday for a trip to Trumbull to take on the No. 5 Eagles (16-5).
Southington’s all-CCC first-round game with Glastonbury featured just four hits for each team. What’s more, all three runs were unearned.
After spotting Glastonbury a 1-0 lead in the first inning, SHS took its permanent 2-1 lead in the second when a pop-up was dropped in shallow left field, allowing Tyler Blumetti and Carson Lentini to score.
Pierce took it from there. The senior right-hander threw just 81 pitches in going the distance. He struck out six and walked none.
Blumetti finished 2-for-4. Lentini (1-for-1) and Frank Boutot Jr. (1-for-3) had the other Southington hits.
In Danbury, Strout went the distance for Cheshire, allowing eight hits and one walk while fanning four. The Rams were limited to three hits — all singles — by Dan Margolies, Bennett Crerar and Ryan Murphy.
Cheshire finished the year at 12-9.
As for the Titans, they pushed aside Windham Tech with a pair of three-run innings — one in the third and the other in the fifth.
All the runs in the third, which erased a 1-0 deficit, came with two outs and nobody on base. Anthony MarkAnthony sparked the rally with a single. Josh Mikulski followed with a double. Both scored on a triple by Tony Sutera.
Matt Moconyi’s ground-rule double made it 3-1.
Mikulski singled and scored on a sacrifice fly by Moconyi in the fifth.
Also getting in on the act were Kade Marcantonio (single), Paul Gorry (RBI double) and Landon Cantelle (RBI single).
Cantelle and Mikulski both finished 3-for-4 to fuel Sheehan’s 13-hit attack. Moconyi and MarkAnthony were 2-for-3.
All the while, Caraballo was deadling. The senior scattered five hits over six innings. He allowed the two Windham Tech runs. Only one was earned. Trevor Venoit finished up in the seventh.