Ellington-Somers Legion Baseball Tops Tolland

Jake Gagne pitched a complete game, four-hit shutout as the Ellington-Somers Senior American Legion baseball team defeated Tolland 5-0 Monday night at Cross Farms Park in Tolland.

With the win, Ellington improved to 13-10 and now stands one win shy of qualifying for the state tournament with three games left to play. Tolland, on the other hand, dropped to 11-11 with the loss, and will now need to win three of its final four games to qualify for the playoffs.

After a quiet first two innings that saw little more than leadoff singles from Ellington’s Dustin Mocadlo and Tolland’s David Ferris, Ellington’s offense got rolling in the top of the third. Gagne led off the inning with a single to left off Tolland starting pitcher Alex Clifford, then Mocadlo tattooed one to center for his second his hit of the evening.

Neal Janiga grounded out but advanced Gagne and Mocadlo to second and third, then Kevin Dwire took a walk to load the bases. Josh Fredette of Somers drove in the first run of the game with a single up the middle, and in the ensuing at-bat, short stop Nick Binkowski hit a chopper over the head of Tolland’s third baseman Ryan Gall to score Mocadlo and put Ellington-Somers up 2-0.

Gagne would retire the next six Tolland batters carrying into the top of the fifth inning, and in the midst of his lights-out performance on the mound, the Ellington-Somers offense struck again in the fourth.

Matt Kramer led off the inning with a single to center field, then stole second. Gagne came through with another seeing-eye single, and Mocadlo drove in Kramer with a liner in the gap in right. Janiga grounded out for the first out of the inning, but during the next two at-bats, Gagne and Mocadlo both stole home on passed balls to make the score 5-0 by the end of Ellington-Somers’ half of the fourth inning.

Tolland’s Nick Cassarino relieved Clifford in the fifth and allowed no runs and just three hits from the nine batters he faced, but the Tolland offense couldn’t find an answer to Gagne.

Tolland first baseman Zach Maffesoli hit a shot to right-center with two outs in the bottom of the seventh, but Mocadlo tracked it down and made a spectacular catch to end the game. 

“It was a great win for us tonight because even though we were coming off a doubleheader and only had nine guys, we came right out of the gate with a lot of intensity and firepower,” said Dwire, “We just have to win one of our last three games to make the playoffs, so we’re in good shape. We’ve been playing hard every night and playing really good ball as a team.”

Mocadlo (3-for-5, RBI) and second baseman Justin Vamvilis (2-for-4) were standouts offensively for Ellington-Somers, and Nick Binkowski (1-for-3) and Josh Fredette (1-for-3) each tacked on a RBI.

For Tolland, Maffesoli drew the only free pass of the evening on a HBP, and the only batters to record a hit aside from Ferris’ leadoff single were Joe Deriezo who hit a double, and Adam Pallanck and Matt McCloskey who each had one single.

“I think we were just beat today,” said Tolland manager Dan Bracken, “We had a doubleheader yesterday including a 12-inning affair, and you can see it took a toll on us with our level of enthusiasm not being nearly as high as it usually is. We have a day off then play Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, so hopefully the day off will give us some energy because we’re going to need it.”