On one side, the Danbury Westerners possessed a three-game winning streak with 10 wins in July, three more than they had in June. In the other corner, the North Shore Navigators had gone 7-3 in their last 10, overtaking the Ocean State Waves in the Coastal Division standings. At the location of the 2023 NECBL All-Star Game, Fraser Field, one winning trend had to give. Hayden Miller hit a triple and his first home run of the summer, a three-run shot, as the Westerners defeated the Navigators 5-2.
“Hayden [Miller] brings his own type of energy,” manager Conor Farrell said about the Charleston third baseman, who went 2-4. “He is going to continue to roll.”
Danbury returns to .500 at 17-17 with the victory, their season-high fourth in a row and sixth in their last seven games. North Shore falls to 16-18 with the loss, their second straight and third since losing four out of five earlier in July.
With All-Star Brayden Clark sending the Westerners down in order in the first, All-Star Jake Berger bashed a leadoff double just three pitches into the bottom half. On third with one out, All-Star Henry Kaczmar’s groundout did not score the game’s first run as the Harvard third baseman made a strange running decision. Thrown off by Bam Talavera grabbing the groundball, Berger headed for home too late as Danbury completed an inning-ending 4-3-2 double play.
Will Cook took All-Star Bobby Zmarzlak’s position on the basepaths and more in the second with a deep double, scoring the Westerners’ first run on a stylistic sequence. Billy Gerlott dropped a single between three Navigators with two down, and although one of them fired a throw home, the Louisville first baseman barely avoided the tag at the plate.
All-Star Evan Griffis led off the bottom half with a single, swiping second on fellow All-Star Matthew Chatelle’s strikeout. Walking Stan DeMartinis III, Jordan Falco stranded both of North Shore’s All-Star outfielders after Jacob Jarrell went down swinging. With his count cleared after Gerlott got caught stealing, Miller hammered an opposite-field leadoff triple in the third. Brandon Drapeau temporarily prevented the Charleston third baseman from scoring with a diving snag and groundout at first, observing as All-Star Javon Hernandez doubled Danbury’s lead with an RBI double.
Jake McElroy reached after forcing Cook off the bag on his leadoff single in the bottom half and swiped second, getting stranded at third on Kaczmar’s groundout. The Ohio State shortstop’s fielding error prevented Clark from working a 1-2-3 fourth, creating a two-out Westerners rally as Gerlott got hit by a pitch. Kaczmar’s mistake became extremely costly three pitches later as Miller hammered an opposite-field three-run shot for a 5-0 advantage, doubling his extra-base hit total on the season.
“I felt like it was well needed,” Miller said about his three-run jack. “It was a clutch situation.”
DeMartinis III almost stopped Falco’s scoreless outing on the first pitch in the fifth, settling for an opposite-field leadoff triple after the ball hit the wall. McElroy did the dirty work instead, hitting a sacrifice fly that Gerlott caught sliding as the Bentley left fielder got the Navigators on the board. Sawyer Duarte relieved Clark in the sixth, allowing Zmarzlak’s leadoff single and a passed ball as Danbury put a runner in scoring position. Advancing 90 feet closer on Cook’s deep flyout, the Middlebury righty stranded the Westerner at third on a flyout in the other direction.
“Hitting is hard enough, so you have just got to attack [the hitters],” the West Division’s closer said about that scenario. “You cannot play around with it.”
Drapeau nearly dented a baseball over the wall, but when the umpires called the deep drive a foul, the Navigators’ dugout and fans vocally disagreed. Benefitting from the long foul, Steele sent the Saint Joseph’s first baseman down swinging as part of a 1-2-3 frame. The Penn State lefty brought up Kaczmar as the tying run with two walks in the ninths, who recorded the final out after a strikeout and a fielder’s choice as Danbury split the season series against North Shore.
“We just continued to do what we had to do and win some ballgames,” Farrell commented about the team’s recent winning ways. “I am happy with it.”
Falco becomes the first Westerners starter with three wins this season, tossing six one-run innings with six strikeouts. Clark collected the loss with five runs (two earned) surrendered in five innings despite fanning four. Steele secured his fourth save in 2.2 innings with five punchouts.
“I started throwing my slider a lot more,” Steele said about what worked in his outing. “That, I felt, really helped elevate the play of the fastball.”
Holding the seventh seed in the NECBL playoffs, Danbury continues their Coastal Division clashes with a battle against the Mystic Schooners (20-12) at the Roadhouse at Rogers Park on July 18. Mystic currently holds the No. 4 seed in the NECBL playoffs, but unlike the first meeting on June 14, when the Westerners recorded two hits, both Nutmeg State teams will most likely compete in a high-scoring heavyweight fight.
“It is going to be a shootout,” Farrell said.
Michael Szturma takes the bump for the fifth time at home with first pitch slated for 6:30 p.m.
The rest of the Danbury Westerners’ 2023 schedule can be found on their website.