By Hal Levy, Shore Line Newspapers
Special to MaxPreps.com
Seymour closed out an undefeated regular season (20-0) and remained atop the New Haven Register media/coaches’ baseball poll this week. The Wildcats then added two more wins including a championship game 12-5 job against Woodland-Beacon Falls to claim the Naugatuck Valley League tournament as well. Seymour defeated Sacred Heart-Waterbury, 13-4, in the semifinals.
Next up is the CIAC Class M state tournament where Seymour is the defending champ and the No. 1 seed.
Most other conference tournaments were not over before the weekend, and many were crunched by a week of unsettled weather which included rain just about every afternoon.
Guilford finished 18-2 with a 12-game win streak and climbed to second in the poll, but the Indians won’t stay there because they lost in the semifinals of the Southern Connecticut Conference tournament, 10-5 to Amity Regional. That gives Amity, fourth in the poll and now 18-4, a two-of-three advantage against Guilford this year. Guilford is the top seed in the Class L tournament, which it won a year ago.
Stamford, 18-2, is third and is the No. 1 seed in the Class LL tournament. Amity is fourth with Xavier-Middletown fifth. The Falcons were upset by Notre Dame-West Haven in the quarterfinals of the SCC tournament and Notre Dame went on to defeat Branford, 8-4, in the semifinals to earn a date with Amity in the finals. Branford was among others receiving votes in the poll.
Plainville, 14-3, is sixth with Wethersfield, 17-2, seventh. Bristol Central, 14-3, is eighth and East Catholic-Manchester, 14-3, is ninth with Trumbull, 16-4, rounding out the top 10.
Also on the baseball scene, Haddam-Killingworth coach Mark Brookes did get his 500th career win, 15-0 over Valley Regional-Deep River, last Saturday. H-K was upset in the semifinals of the Shoreline Conference tournament by Nathan Hale-Ray of East Haddam.
Bunnell-Stratford got a perfect game from senior Tyler Lasko, who struck out 12 in a 6-0 win over New Milford. Lasko also helped himself at the plate with a single, double and three runs batted in.
Softball
Rachele Fico of Masuk-Monroe had her five-game streak of perfect games snapped when Courtney Collins of Lauralton Hall-Milford got a hit in the first inning. Fico had retired 130 straight batters prior to that hit, which went down the third base line and hit the bag.
Masuk still won the game, 1-0 in nine innings on a walk-off triple by Christine Leo, scoring Alyssa Pagano. At 20-0, Masuk was the unanimous selection of voters in the New Haven Register’s media/coaches poll.
Bristol Eastern, 17-0 at the time of the voting, ranked second and then won its last three regular-season games for a 20-0 mark. Trumbull also finished 20-0 and ranks third with Seymour, 19-1, fourth and Lauralton Hall, 17-3, fifth.
Amity Regional, 17-3, is ranked sixth and has won two more games in the Southern Connecticut Conference tournament to set up a third meeting with Cheshire for the tourney title. The Rams, 19-3 including the tournament, are ranked eighth. Cheshire and Amity split a pair of regular-season games.
Fitch-Groton, 18-2, is ranked seventh with North Haven, 18-2, ninth and Naugatuck, 17-3, 10th.
As with baseball, the CIAC state tournaments begin Tuesday.
Boys Volleyball
The Southington High boys volleyball team, which recently finished an undefeated season, played a marathon match with Lewis Mills-Burlington, recently. The final score of the first game was 42-40 in favor of Lewis Mills, the single highest scoring game in state history, according to Southington coach Lou Gianacopolos.
Southington didn’t let the loss bother it, winning the next three games, 25-22, 25-20, 25-20. Southington is the top seed in the Class L state tournament.
Boys Lacrosse
It’s a clean sweep for Darien, according to LaxPower.com.
The web site ranks every high school team which plays and has the Darien boys’ and girls’ teams both at the pinnacle of the sport in Connecticut. The boys, 15-1 and girls, 13-3, both lead the list.
The others in the top five of the boys’ list include Greenwich, Fairfield Prep, Ridgefield and Simsbury while for the girls, Wilton, Greenwich, New Canaan and William Hall-West Hartford round out the top five.
Most lacrosse teams are involved with conference playoffs with the CIAC state tournament starting late next week.
