Late Charge by Raiders Falls Short

A Windsor Locks rally in the seventh inning ran out of steam and East Hampton’s freshman reliever finally composed himself Tuesday in a Class S baseball semifinal at Bristol’s Muzzy Field that eliminated the Raiders.

Chuck Vogt, the Windsor Locks go-to guy on the mound, could not contain the pesky Bellringers completely, and the Shoreline Conference champions defeated the Raiders 5-3 to advance to the S title game against East Catholic on Saturday in Bristol at 3:30 p.m.

East Hampton’s Marvin Gorgas, who started at shortstop, ended the game by striking out Brian Oddo and Michael Thompson with the go-ahead runner at first base.

“We cannot expect him to win every game 1-0,” said Windsor Locks coach Dave Farr. “This is the first time this season a team has scored more than three runs in a game against Chuck. He’s one of the best four players I’ve coached here.”

Make no mistake, Vogt was not off. But he wasn’t quite effective enough to stop second-seeded East Hampton (21-4) from battling off his pitches and finally finding something they could hit.

Through four innings, Vogt (8-3) was looking sharp. The Raiders, the No. 3 seed, led by 1-0 and he had given up three hits and no walks with four strikeouts in just 47 pitches.

“We have hit a lot of good pitchers this year,” said East Hampton coach Scott Wosleger. “We knew it was just a matter of getting a couple of key hits in a couple of key spots. We don’t have an easy out in the lineup. Not one of them was intimidated by being on this stage.”

But a mistake by Vogt, uncharacteristic, Farr said, began the Raiders’ unraveling. Brian Roberson led-off against Vogt with a single into right-center field. Austin Shumbo showed bunt, Vogt pounced off the mound, fielded it cleanly and instead of throwing to first base for the safe play, he boldly tried to get Roberson heading into second.

The throw was wild, into center field. Instead of a runner on second with one out, there were two on and no out. Nate Heroux followed with a double and the 1-0 Raiders lead had turned into a 2-1 deficit.

From there, Adam Michaud’s double made it 3-1 Bellringers and Alex Ianone, East Hampton’s starting pitcher, who improved to 11-0, drove in a run with a single. Joe Tuxbury’s single in the fifth off Vogt made it 5-1.

“On that play, Chuck has got to get an out,” Farr said. “I yelled out to get one out; I don’t know who on the team told him to go to second base. He’s a smart player; he’s the smartest kid on the team.

“That gives them momentum,” Farr said. “That gives them a little energizing. To their credit, they got the hits. They were tough outs. They worked the counts and got their hits.”

But Windsor Locks had been averaging 7.0 runs a game in its first two tournament games and the Raiders’ batters weren’t done yet. Ianone was relieved by Gorgas after giving up the one run on five hits and no walks with two strikeouts. And Windsor Locks went right to work.

Windsor Locks shortstop Tyler DeMarco, who had led-off the game by being hit by a pitch and then scoring on Chuck Vogt’s single to left field, reached on a throwing error by the East Hampton shortstop to open the top of the seventh. Then Chuck Vogt and Casey Vogt drew walks to load the bases with one out.

Josh Poissant got his second hit of the game and his single drove in DeMarco and Chuck Vogt. Mike Gentile then got on base for the fourth time with a long, drawn out walk to reload the bases.

“We knew with each batter coming by, even though they were rallying, we knew we’d be getting to the bottom of their order after some drama,” Wosleger said.

He said he conferred with his coaches and they all agreed to bring Gorgas on fresh at the start of the inning.

Gorgas had been used as a closer, had been effective and had gained the trust of his teammates. Gorgas stayed with his game plan and got the final two outs for the win.