TORRINGTON — On a hitter’s day at Torrington’s Fuessenich Park, Woodland kept its bats cranking after four close innings for a 12-6 win over Torrington Tuesday afternoon.
Torrington’s Cam Cerruto (3 RBIs) blasted a home run and triple for his second straight game, but Woodland’s Colby Linnell matched him with an inside-the-park homer, double and 4 RBIs, leading nine Hawks to 16 hits against three Torrington pitchers.
“We’re starting to hit,” Woodland coach Mike Kingsley said in the understatement of the day. “We were striking out a lot in our first two games, but now we’re putting the ball in play and we’ve cut down on the strikeouts.”
The Hawks (5-2, 4-2 NVL) began their assault with three runs in the top of the first inning on four hits, featuring a leadoff triple by Justin Butterworth.
The Red Raiders (3-3, 2-3 NVL) made it look like a long cold day for pitchers with three runs of their own in the bottom of the inning on three hits, including a triple by Cerruto that sailed way over Butterworth’s head almost to the fence in dead center field.
The second inning went quietly for Torrington starter Garrett Fosbrook and Woodland’s Matt Szturma. Then Woodland’s bats cracked it open again in the top of the third. Five hits, aided by a pair of Raider errors, pasted up three more runs to make it 6-3.
Torrington responded with a run in the bottom of the inning, bringing Mike Szturma to the mound to protect his brother’s lead.
Woodland’s bats did it even better.
The Hawks got just two fourth-inning hits against reliever Brian Bassler, but they were huge. Zack Bedryczuk led off with a triple and stole home. After a walk to Zak Graveline, Linnell sent a blast to deep right center field, racing around the bases behind Graveline for a 9-4 lead that had a shivering crowd thinking about the 10-run mercy rule.
Torrington wasn’t having it.
“We kept battling,” Torrington coach Pat Richardson said. “Almost everyone in our lineup can get a hit.”
C.J. Root proved it with a single. Cerruto followed with a shot over the left field fence cutting the deficit to 9-6, then had a chance to tie the game in the bottom of the fifth after Bassler blanked the top of Woodland’s order in the top of the inning.
With two outs, runners on first and third, Cerruti came up for his third at-bat.
“For a second, I thought about putting him on, but I wasn’t going to put the tying run on base,” Kingsley said.
Instead, Kingsley went to the mound, admonishing Szturma not to give the West Point-bound senior anything good.
Cerruto got under a high fly to center field — the final out of the inning and Torrington’s final hope.
Szturma no-hit the Raiders for the last two; Woodland batters kept pouring it on — two runs in the sixth and one more in the top of the seventh on four more hits.
Jason Claiborn joined Bedryczuk and Linnell as the Hawks’ big hitters, all 3-for-5.
Casey Navin was Cerruto’s hitting partner, 2-for-3 for Torrington among eight Raider hits.
WOODLAND 12, TORRINGTON 6
WOODLAND 303 302 1 – 12 16 2
TORRINGTON 301 200 0 – 6 8 2
WP: Matt Szturma. LP: Garrett Fosbrook. HR: W – Colby Linnell. T – Cam Cerruto. 3B: W – Zack Bedryczuk. T – Cerruto. 2B: W – Linnell; Mike Szturma; Dave Kiernan.
Records: Woodland 5-2, 4-2 NVL. Torrington 3-3, 2-3 NVL.