The Danbury Westerners got the better of the Bristol Blues 7-3 last night at Muzzy Field.
Danbury (22-19) hitters combined for fourteen hits against Bristol (12-29) pitching while Renn Lints worked a three-inning save.
Andrew Jenkins floated a bloop single over the head of Bristol shortstop Brock Murtha to score Banks Griffith in the top of the first to give Danbury a 1-0 lead. Jenkins’ hit followed a Griffith broken-bat bloop double down the first base line.
Luke Shliger brought in his first RBI as a Westerner in the top of the second on a double to left field that brought in Nick Lorusso.
Brock Murtha put Bristol on the board with a two-out RBI single. The inning ended on the single after Justin Jordan threw out Bristol catcher Tyson Cooper at third base with a 2-1 score in Danbury’s favor.
Nick Lorusso lined his second single of the night to bring home Andrew Jenkins and Banks Griffith in the top of the third. Lorusso tried to extend the single into a double but was thrown out.
Two more runs scored for the Westerners in the top of the fifth inning. Cam Masterman singled in Justin Jordan while Banks Griffith scored on an Andrew Jenkins fielder’s choice to make the score 6-1.
Bristol responded with two runs of their own in the bottom half of the fifth. After the bases loaded up, Drew Rogers scored on a passed ball. Austin White later had a sacrifice fly to make the score 6-3 Westerners before Justin Solimine forced a Brennen Dorighi groundout to end the inning.
Will Gersky put Danbury back in the scoring column in the top of the seventh with an RBI single to the gap in left-center.
Renn Lints came on in relief for Justin Solimine and finished the remaining three innings against the Bristol offense while only giving up three hits in a long save.
After the game, Westerners hitting coach Bobby Rodriguez applauded the team after a 14 hit performance.
“We were more aggressive tonight,” Rodriguez said, “We’ve talked about it all season long where we jump ahead on fastball counts.”
Danbury hitters have now combined for 29 total hits across their last three games.
The Westerners host the Newport Gulls on August 2 at Rogers Park at 6:30 PM in their final game of the 2021 NECBL Regular Season. The game will be live-streamed on the NECBL Network.
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