Rain suspends East Lyme Little League state tourney baseball game
Jul. 27—TRUMBULL — East Lyme struck fast and first for the second straight game before running into an obstacle on Thursday.
Mother Nature.
A soaking rain moved in with one out in the bottom of the second inning, forcing the suspension of the Connecticut Little League (10-12) baseball state tournament winners' bracket game at Unity Park.
The game will pick up at 6 p.m. Friday where it left off, with East Lyme leading 2-0 and Westport at bat.
"We kind of knew coming in that it was a possibility looking at the radar," East Lyme manager Andrew Cellemme said. "There was talk about moving the game earlier but they just couldn't coordinate with the late notice.
"So, we'll roll back out here (Friday) and pick up where we left off."
East Lyme's bats came alive in the first inning a day after scoring eight runs to start its state tournament opener on the way to a 12-0 mercy rule win over Brooklyn in four innings.
The District 10 champs sent eight batters to the plate in the top of the first inning, knocked out four hits and took advantage of three errors to score two runs.
Kyle Cellemme led off with a hard single past the third baseman. Greyson Biggs, the starting pitcher, drilled a single to left and an error enabled a hustling Cellemme to come all the way around to score.
Alexander Biscotto followed with a one-out, RBI single to make it 2-0. But that would be it, as East Lyme left the bases loaded.
Biggs pitched well before the rain came, striking out two in the first and stranding a runner on second. He recorded the first out in the second before bad weather arrived and stopped the game.
After a roughly 15 minute rain delay, the game was suspended.
"My preference would be to keep rolling through this game because I feel like we hit our stride a little bit," Andrew Cellemme said. "But we'll roll it back tomorrow and see what happens."
The remaining state tournament schedule moves up a day, with Friday's winner between East Lyme and Westport advancing to the championship round on Sunday.
The Brooklyn-Shelton losers' bracket game was also suspended and will be completed on Friday. The winner of that game plays the East Lyme-Westport loser on Saturday.
