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07/30/2014 12:00 AMThe Madison 19-U baseball team participated in the Nutmeg Games last week in New Britain and made it all the way to the final round before a tough 3-2 walk-off loss to Simsbury Senior Legion on July 26 in which the Tigers were leading 2-1 heading into the bottom of the seventh.
"I'm really proud of the guys. Tough game today, but we're improving. Guys are learning and having a great time," said Head Coach Jon Golicz. "Tough loss, but this team is starting to play together and starting to believe in themselves and that's a dangerous combination."
Leading up to the semifinal round, the Tigers went 3-0 in their first trio of contests-winning all by 5-4 decisions. On July 21 against the CT Tide, Madison prevailed with Joe Hill pitching "a gem," according to Golicz and the Tigers walked off on an error in the bottom of the seventh to win. Hill went the distance and earned the win, throwing just under 80 pitches with five strikeouts and only issuing two walks. Nick Ursini scored the winning run after Ray Miklos hit a sharp shot to short which the shortstop threw away.
The next night against Bridgeport Senior Legion, Jason Vitale got the victory on the bump. The offense came through again, going up 3-0 in the first inning and Madison never looked back. On July 23 against Simsbury, Magnus Grigor was the one on the mound and held Madison close until it was able to break through late in the game.
"The team is really coming together nicely. On Sunday night [July 20], we played a terrible game against the Guilford Senior Legion squad [a 4-0 loss]. Our heads weren't in it and there wasn't any offense on our end. We deserved to lose that game and we did," said Golicz. "I got on the team after the game, telling them to step it up and prove something to me this week at the Nutmeg Games against teams that would mercy us if we played the way we did against Guilford. Since then, we scored 15 runs and won three straight games. The games have been clean with very few errors and, most importantly, only one mental error that I can think of off the top of my head. We're turning the corner here and finally becoming the team we are instead of the team everyone thought we would be. These guys have proven to themselves that they are capable of great things and I'm extremely proud of every single one of them."