CCSU Falls Behind Early, Unable to Catch Up to High Scoring Huskies
Kyle Zarotney was 1-4 with 2 RBI in Saturday's season-ending loss.
By Kenny Barto
The Connecticut Huskies scored 6 runs in the first two innings against CCSU Saturday afternoon and never looked back, defeating and eliminating the Blue Devils from the Norwich Regional of the College World Series by a final score of 25-5.
The Blue Devils’ only offense came in the second and third innings. When Kyle Zarotney reached on an error by the third baseman, Pat Epps was able to score their first run. One batter later, Anthony Scialdone doubled down the left field line to bring in two to bring the game to 6-3.
The Huskies answered with one run on a Pierre LePage RBI single. CCSU came back and were able to get runners on second and third with Zarotney up to bat. Zarotney lined a single to right field which brought in Richie Tri and Sean Miller-Jones to bring them within two runs.
That’s as close as they would get, however, as UConn struck with an eight-run fourth inning. The Huskies were able to score in each of the first six innings while holding CCSU scoreless for the last six. UConn used seven pitchers overall, the longest of which went 2 2/3 innings.
Two potential draftees in Mike Olt and George Springer did well for the Huskies. Olt was 4-for-4 with 8 RBI’s and two home runs. Springer was 2-for-5 with five runs scored, including a home run.
Regardless of the score, CCSU kept battling, diving for ground balls and grinding through tough at-bats.
“That is the whole team. For us it is really easy to sit there and say, this is the last game that we are going to play, why not?,” said senior Tommy Meade. “But, even the other guys on the team, underclassmen, they kept it out there and did the best that they could, playing as hard as they could. UConn just got the best of us.”
Sean Allaire was able to break the single season hit record for CCSU by recording his 100th of the season.
“I can’t explain it. As everybody says ‘How did you do it?,’ I don’t know how I did it,” said Allaire. “I just went out there and worked hard and played the game as hard as I could every day.”
Allaire, who was 1-for-5 in the game, agreed with his teammate on the Blue Devils never-give-up attitude.
“That is the kind of team that we are. It is tough to have the score 25-5 and keep playing, but that is the type of team that we aren’t going to give up,” Allaire said. “Pitching and hitting, we are just going to go out there and do the best we can for nine innings.”
After the game, Head Coach Charlie Hickey had nothing but praise for the tough UConn team that they faced.
“I think that UConn looked like a top 20 team in the country to me out there,” Hickey said. “I think their quality of their depth is contagious, it creates competition for them and they all play the game awfully hard.”
CCSU’s season has now come to an end with the loss, but with a conference championship under his belt, coach Hickey was still thinking positive.
“I’m not disappointed of my team, but disappointed for them,” said Hickey. “Probably in about 48 hours we are going to realize we had a very successful season, got our back into the NCAA Regional field and we are excited about our future.”
