Somers baseball in its first state championship since 1984 after 9-3 win over Oxford, will play St. Paul in the Class S final
At the start of the baseball season, Somers High coach Jim Coleman took his seniors aside and asked them what they wanted to get out of the season.
They wanted a conference title; they wanted a state title, too.
The Spartans did not get the conference title but they did end up putting themselves in position to achieve the second goal Tuesday afternoon at Palmer Field.
Leadoff batter Colby McCormick went 4 for 4 and scored three runs and senior lefthander Kaede Wood pitched a two-hitter through five innings, striking out six, as third-seeded Somers (20-4) beat No. 7 Oxford 9-3 in the Class S semifinal game.
Somers will head to its first state championship game since 1984. The Spartans will face St. Paul, a 7-0 winner over Immaculate, at Palmer Field either Friday or Saturday at a time to be determined. Oxford finished at 18-8.
“It’s huge,” said Wood, who had a single, an RBI and scored two runs. “We’re a group of guys who’s been playing together since we were 10 years old - travel ball, Little League, juniors, now for us to do this and make something special for our senior year, it’s a really big moment for us.”
Somers scored four runs in the first inning. McCormick started off the game with an infield single, advanced to second on a single by Tommy Lesco, Wood walked to load the bases with no outs and Cody Palazzesi’s single to left drove home the Spartans’ first two runs. Wood scored on an error while Palazzesi moved to third on the error and then scored on a fielders’ choice.
“We’ve always been a first few innings type of team,” McCormick said. “Getting four in the first was a good start and shutting them down defensively was good.”
Somers added another run in the second inning when McCormick once again led off with a single to center, stole second and scored on an error.
Wood gave up his first hit, a single up the middle to Connor Clifford, in the top of the fourth inning. He gave up another single to Brando Fletter in the fifth but then picked him off.
“We’ve been using our legs all year, but Kaede Wood definitely took us out of our game,” Oxford coach Dom Merole said. “We had a tough time doing anything on the bases with him. That’s been our MO all year; we stole over 100 bases and he kind of stopped us from doing that.”
St. Paul 7, Immaculate 0: Senior Brendan Foley had 14 strikeouts in 6 1/3 innings and gave up four hits as St. Paul advanced to the Class S championship game for the second straight year with a win over Immaculate at Palmer Field.
St. Paul lost to Coginchaug in the Class S final last year.
The top-seeded Falcons (25-1) opened the scoring in the bottom of the first inning when Devin Kulas singled to center, stole second and scored on a Ryan Daniels’ infield single. Casey Cerruto drove in Daniels with a single to right and scored the third run on a fielders’ choice. Jamie Leggett drove in the fourth run with a single to left.
Foley had nine strikeouts through the first three innings. With two outs in the top of the fourth inning, Wyatt Jarbo singled to left but was picked off trying to steal second by Cerruto, the St. Paul catcher.
St. Paul picked up two more runs in bottom of the fifth after Daniels and Mario Izzo walked and Cerruto and Joey Tonnotti had back-to-back RBI singles, then added one more run in the sixth.
Foley left the game after giving up a triple to Wyatt Jarbo with one out in the top of the seventh and Jamie Leggett closed out the game in relief.
Immaculate, the 12th seed, finished the season at 15-9.
Lori Riley can be reached at lriley@courant.com.
