NFA edges East Lyme 2-1 to win ECC Large baseball title
East Lyme — There was little that Norwich Free Academy was going to do offensively on Thursday night because East Lyme pitcher C.J. Leindecker was just plain filthy.
Cam Milton was the one NFA player who could figure Leindecker out, however. He had three of the Wildcats’ four hits, including a go-ahead RBI single with two outs in the bottom of the sixth inning, to give them a 2-1 win over East Lyme and their first Eastern Connecticut Conference Large Division title since 2009.
“It’s great,” Milton said of winning the division. “Even starting (Wednesday), we were hyped and amped for it.”
NFA is 16-3, 9-1.
The game was all about the two starting pitchers (and five East Lyme errors). The Wildcats’ Nic Vlaun pitched a two-hitter with nine strikeouts, two walks and no earned runs.
“This is the third time this year that Nic didn’t have his best stuff, but in the fifth inning, suddenly he’s got his best stuff that he’s had all year,” NFA head coach Luke Gabordi said. “He is a tough, tough kid.
“He’s now thrown 49.2 innings, (is) 7-0 (with one save), and given up five total runs all season long. If that’s not all-state, then I have no idea what is.”
Leindecker was just as spectacular in defeat for the Vikings (13-6, 7-3). He pitched a four-hitter with 12 strikeouts, no walks and no earned runs.
“My hat goes off to both pitchers tonight,” Vikings head coach Jack Biggs said. “Vlaun and C.J. had a great pitchers' duel out there. They did everything possible that they could. C.J. was on a roll and Nic was on a roll, too. It was a fun game to watch those guys compete.”
Gabordi said, “C.J. was absolutely dealing. … I don’t think there was anything that we could do that was going to score a bunch of runs off C.J. It’s hard to express that when you just beat him, but you can’t pitch better than he pitched.”
The game was tied at 1 with one out in the top of the sixth inning when Caleb Bierman singled and went to second on a passed ball. Tannor Fontaine followed by reaching first on the fifth East Lyme error.
Leindecker retired the next batter for the second out, but Milton followed with an RBI single.
“Cam was great tonight,” Gabordi said. “Cam battles. … (Our) two runs had much less to do with our bats and way more to do with the way (Leindecker) pitched. He was nasty.”
NFA took the early lead as Fontaine reached on a throwing error to lead off the NFA second inning. He stole second and scored when Milton’s one out single was misplayed. It was the second of three Vikings' errors that inning.
“You can’t make five errors against a team like NFA, that’s the bottom line,” Biggs said. “We didn’t get it done behind C.J. tonight.”
East Lyme tied the game that inning thanks to a Wildcats’ mistake. Logan Banker received a leadoff walk, went to second on Owen Tretter's sacrifice, to third on an infield out and scored when Bennett Coe's grounder resulted in an error.
The Vikings had a chance to score with one out in the bottom of the seventh when Miles Coe was hit by a pitch.
Vlaun struck out the next batter. Mike Morgan then flied out to deep centerfield to end the game.
“These kids have played great all year,” Gabordi said. “We’ve just found ways to scratch out wins,”
n.griffen@theday.com
Twitter: @MetalNED
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