SOUTHINGTON — Like the Wallingford Silver Storm, the Southington Black Knights are having a good season so far in the Connecticut Collegiate Baseball League.
With Wednesday’s 10-3 win over the Bridgeport Barnums at Southington High School, the Black Knights are 6-4 and right on the heels of the front-running Silver Storm (6-3-1).
Southington head coach John Susi has high hopes for his team.
“In this league, I think we have the capabilities of finishing in the top half,” Susi said Wednesday. “I think I would be disappointed if we were not in the top three or four.
“Hopefully, we will make a run in the playoffs,” Susi continued. “Last year, I thought we had a good shot to go deep in the playoffs, but we ended up getting beat. We just have to hope that we don’t get tired at the end of the season.”
On Wednesday, the Black Knights were looking to redeem themselves after producing just one hit in a 2-0 loss to the Western Mass Pioneers on Tuesday.
“We got stymied,” Susi said. “The bats didn’t show up. I honestly came to the ballpark today a little worried.”
Susi’s concerns did not last too long. The Black Knights scored eight first-inning runs en route to their 10-3 victory against the Bridgeport Barnums. It was their second victory against the Barnums this season.
Wednesday’s win was characterized by quality hitting and a solid pitching performance by Bobby Lasbury.
“I was throwing a lot of strikes,” Lasbury said. “My changeup was there and I had good defense behind me. Overall, everyone played well.”
Lasbury received a lot of run support as the Black Knights took advantage of Bridgeport’s mistakes.
Southington leadoff hitter Savier Page was drilled in the back by Barnums pitcher Andrew Fortunato on the first pitch he saw. A wild pitch advanced Paige to second and he scored on an error at first base.
Cleanup hitter Ryan Parent later hit a two-run single to give the Black Knights a 3-0 lead and promptly came around to score on three straight wild pitches by Fortunato.
A Jared Clark double, an Owen Davis sacrifice fly and a two-run single by Paige made the score 8-0 at the end of the first inning.
Susi was impressed with his team’s approach to the plate and said that it was an improvement from the last time the Black Knights faced Fortunato.
“He closed against us on Father’s Day down in Bridgeport, and threw very hard and very well,” Susi said. “When he got on the mound [tonight], I said, ‘Here we go, another tough one,’ but right off the bat, the bats were awake, and we started taking good pitches and everyone was finding a hole.”
The Black Knights added two more runs in the bottom of the second on a single by Clark.
Lasbury, meanwhile, took care of business by striking out seven batters in four innings. He allowed only two earned runs on three hits.
“My approach was to keep guys off balance,” Lasbury said. “I just wanted to hit my spots, and that was pretty much it.”
The Black Knights next face the struggling Glastonbury Arrows (1-6) on Friday at home. Southington defeated the Arrows 5-3 in their first matchup earlier in the season.
Susi made it clear that although his main job is to be a coach, he wants his players to enjoy themselves this summer. During the college season, Susi is head coach at Western Connecticut State.
“Being a college coach, I want to be able to help them as best I can and let them play,” he said. “But it’s got to be enjoyable. We have a lot of fun here. We’ve come off long spring seasons in the NCAA and, at the end of the year, it is exhausting,. So this is my fun, and this is their fun.”
!function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s)
{if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function(){n.callMethod?
n.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)};
if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;n.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version=’2.0′;
n.queue=[];t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0;
t.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0];
s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)}(window, document,’script’,
‘https://connect.facebook.net/en_US/fbevents.js’);
fbq(‘init’, ‘879620879493169’);
fbq(‘track’, ‘PageView’);