Raiders Fall In Class S Baseball Tournament

What a difference a day makes.

Just 24 hours after exploded for a 15-run inning in a 19-1 victory over Bolton, the Raiders found themselves victimized by a combination of cold bats and poor defense, coupled with some timely Cromwell hitting.

Windsor Locks committed six errors which led to six unearned runs, including five in a nine-run third inning that propelled Cromwell to a 10-3 victory and a berth in the Class S baseball quarterfinals.

Cromwell (17-5) will host St. Paul Catholic Saturday at a site and time to be determined. 

The Raiders allowed an unearned run in the second inning, but came back to take the lead with two runs in the third. A sacrifice fly by Mike Gentile brought in Jonathan Oliveira, and Zach Weigert scored on an infield single by Casey Vogt.

Cromwell used four singles, a walk and an infield out to score four runs in the third to take a 5-2 lead. Windsor Locks starting pitcher Conor Pepin appeared to be out of the inning by inducing a two-out grounder, but an infield error allowed in another run and opened the floodgates for the Panthers.

A hit batsman, three more errors and a run-scoring single plated four more runs and drove Pepin from the mound in favor of Tyler DeMarco, who held Cromwell to two hits and no runs over the final three-and-a-third innings.

"Unfortunately, our defense wasn't very good," longtime Windsor Locks coach Dave Farr said. "Even our outfielders were bobbling  balls. We had just gone up and you want to knock them down, but they swung the bats and our defense didn't help."

The Raiders managed to score one more run in the sixth off Cromwell pitcher Doug Davenport, when Gentile reached on an error and eventually scored on a two-out double by Mike Thompson.

Davenport tossed a complete game, permitting just four hits and striking out six.

Steven Radziewicz and Alex Ramirez had two hits apiece for the Panthers. Ramirez knocked in two runs, while Steven Radziewicz, Kevin Radziewicz and Patrick Sirois each scored twice.

Windsor Locks finished the season with a 14-9 record.