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Sports

Cheshire Drops One to East Haven

Yellowjackets score five in the third inning and hold on for SCC baseball victory.

Editor's note: This article is compliment of Cheshire Patch

Cheshire gave up five runs in a nightmare third inning, then rallied late but wound up falling to East Haven 6-5 Friday afternoon in a Southern Connecticut Conference baseball game at Bert Leventhal Field.

First-time varsity starter Bob Consolatore kept the Rams hitters off-stride with an array of off-speed pitches — curveballs, changeups and knuckleballs — in a complete game victory in which he scattered 12 hits and walked only one.

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"Finally. We finally put all three phases together today," East Haven coach Butch Johnson said. "(Consolatore) has that knuckleball and that curveball, 90 percent off-speed. You don't feed Cheshire fastballs or they're going to be hitting out in Southington.

"You have to throw them some junk because they'll just feast off the fastballs. They ripped the ball but we made some great plays in the field and kept them out of the big inning."

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Cheshire (10-4) came back with four runs over the final four innings, two in the bottom of the seventh, but coach Bill Mrowka was unhappy with his team's effort.

"A terrible loss," Mrowka said. "Absolutely disgusting. Shows no character, no leadership. It was awful. We had bad at-bats. I don't want to take anything away from (Consolatore). I'll put it all on us that we just didn't have a good approach at the plate."

East Haven (5-8) tied the game 1-1 on a solo home run to deep left by Mike Anastasio in the second inning off Cheshire starter Ryan Fowler (4-3).

Then came the third. East Haven's Nick Lamberti reached on Ryan Rougeot's error on a bouncer down the line that short-hopped the third baseman. Lamberti scored one out later on Vin Guglietti's double to make it 2-1.

Anastasio and Brandon Gargiulo walked to load the bases, and Adam Poulin and Consolatore then hit back-to-back RBI singles for a 4-1 lead. Gargiulo scored on Derek Panicalli's swinging bunt and Poulin came home on a wild pitch to make it 6-1.

"That's what we haven't done all year," Johnson said. "Everything came together today. It's a nice win against a great team. That's a huge win for us."

Although the Rams hit the ball hard at times, it was usually right at fielders. They never seemed to get out of a funk they went into after that third inning.

"We hit it hard a couple of times but I think the umpire blew the call at the plate (on the infield hit) so that doesn't help," Mrowka said. "Couple errors here, another error there, just adds to it (three for the game). We just came out flat. Eleven-inning game yesterday, but you know what, we expect more out of them, and they just came out with no intensity. No energy. It's disappointing for having 10 seniors."

"We came out hoping to build off last night's win (in extra innings against Shelton)," said senior captain Connor David, who drove in a run on a groundout in the seventh. "Our bats let us down. Overall, it was just a bad effort."

Still, there was some upside in the loss. Jordan Kubilus pitched four innings of one-hit scoreless relief  and had two hits, including an RBI double, and Dom Severino had two doubles and an RBI.

"Jordan came in and pitched well, which was good because we did not get a good effort out of Ryan," Mrowka said. "He's been struggling. It's put us in holes in games. We've been able to hit our way out of it but we just weren't able to do that today.

"(Jordan) did his job. That's a positive. Matt Jefferis (3-for-4, two doubles) continues to hit the ball real well. Tyler Robertson (2-for-3) had another good game."

Cheshire plays at Housatonic Division rival Amity on Monday in the first of three road games next week.

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