The Danbury Westerners outslugged the Valley Blue Sox 12-10 in a game where there were 32 total hits at Mackenzie Stadium.
Danbury (19-17) had two five-run innings in the first and fifth while the Blue Sox (20-15) attempted to make a comeback against the Westerners bullpen by scoring seven runs across the final three innings.
A five-run top of the first inning had Westerners bat around. Banks Griffith led off the game with a double to right field. The bases soon found themselves loaded with Westerners after Jack Payton reached on an error and Nick Lorusso singled. Cam Masterman emptied the bases with a double to center field to give the Westerners a 3-0 lead with no outs. Andrew Jenkins doubled home Masterman and then Will Gersky scored Jenkins with a single to improve the Danbury lead to 5-0.
The Blue Sox got a run back on a 4-6-3 double play from Brendan Hueth in the bottom of the second.
Andrew Jenkins regained a five-run Danbury lead with a solo home run to left field in the top of the third. Jake Roper matched Jenkins with a solo home run of his own to the Valley bullpen in left to make the score 7-1 Danbury.
Danbury matched their top of the first with a second five-run inning in the top of the fifth. Andrew Jenkins returned to the home run party with his second of the night, a two-run shot, to increase the Danbury lead to 9-1. Jack Payton and Sebastian Murillo each had RBI singles, while Henry Strmecki had an RBI double. After Payton’s single, every Westerner had a hit while the scoreboard read 12-1 in favor of the Westerners.
Jenkins later said that his hitting approach was to keep it simple and have fun after his four-hit night that raised his batting average to .367 on the season.
Brian Hart brought home two runs for the Valley Blue Sox in the bottom of the fifth with a double to right field that scored Jack Housinger and Jonathan Kelly.
Valley added three runs in the bottom of the seventh. Jonathan Kelly scored on a throw into the outfield on a Mason LaPlante stolen base while Jack Housinger crushed a two-run home run to right field off of Danbury reliever Renn Lints.
Jack Housinger plated two more runs for Valley in the bottom of the eighth on a single to right field for his fourth hit on the night.
Brian Hart hit his eleventh home run of the season to right-center field in the bottom of the ninth. Luke Franzoni then followed with a pinch-hit triple to center field, he then scored on a sacrifice fly to left field from Nathan Thomas to make the score 12-10 Danbury. Coleman Picard struck out Brendan Hueth swinging to end the game.
The Danbury Westerners have Monday off before hosting the Ocean State Waves (15-20) at Rogers Park on June 27 at 6:30 PM. The game will be livestreamed on the NECBL Network.
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