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08/13/2014 12:00 AMIn a rain-shortened "War at the Shore" Tournament in New London on August 2-3, the Madison 19-U baseball team reached the final round before a 2-1 loss to West Hartford.
For the semifinals on the morning of August 3, Madison routed the Massachusetts Vikings 11-1 and won in five innings by way of the mercy rule. Joe Hill pitched a great game, allowing only one run off four hits and adding in five strikeouts. Blake Egan led the offense with five RBIs, and Gunnar Keiser tacked on two RBIs.
In the championship clash, Jason Vitale took the hill in this one and had a strong outing, including getting out of trouble two times with double plays. West Hartford barely hit him at all with most of its tallies coming off bloop base knocks.
"We played great baseball in the game, but for the second weekend in a row, we came up an inning short of winning it all," said Head Coach Jon Golicz, whose club wrapped up its season with the Providence Slugfest Tournament on August 8-10. "Overall, I saw great baseball and more importantly, passion from these guys. They were focused, determined, and wanted to win. It's a shame that we only have one tournament left, because I think with a couple more weeks, this team could really come together and do some damage. We played great defense this weekend, we had amazing pitching, and very good timely hitting to make some noise. I'm excited for this team; they've come a long way since we started this season and hopefully we can carry the momentum of the last two weeks into this upcoming weekend in Rhode Island and show 25 teams what Madison Baseball is turning into."