By Michael Letendre
Once again, the Connecticut American Legion Baseball Top-10 poll was recently released for the Seniors level.
Not surprisingly, the top three teams from last week are in the same positions in the most recent poll.
Records in the poll are as of Sunday, June 26.
RCP Prep (Cromwell) has been on a tear to start the 2022 campaign and are a perfect 12-0, ranked first among the squads in Connecticut.
Middletown has been tremendous as well, rated second at 10-0, and have yet to lose while third ranked Stamford is 9-1 through 10 games.
West Haven is a perfect 8-0 and jumped up from fifth to fourth while Zone 1’s West Hartford continues its onslaught with a 9-0 ledger – moving from eighth to the fifth slot in the most recent rankings.
In sixth is Waterford (8-1-1), moving up one position from last week while Greenwich and Willimantic are new to the poll.
Greenwich (7-1) is seventh, Willimantic (9-2) is eighth while the last two spots in the poll belonged to squads that fell drastically in the rankings.
Danbury (7-3) dropped from fourth to ninth while Ellington (7-3) slipped from sixth to 10th.
North Haven and Westport fell out of the rankings entirely but are threats within their respective zones.
Tough year for Zone 1 Teams
After losing Naugatuck to start the season, Newington – which had a solid roster of players – never got its campaign off the ground.
And unfortunately, the squad was unable to compete as Zone 1 has, incredibly, dropped to just five teams in 2022.
The current teams are West Hartford (9-0 Zone 1), Bristol (5-2), Simsbury (3-5), Meriden (2-6), and Torrington (1-7) who recently just got its Senior program back together after a couple years without a team.
But there will be a major shake-up of the zones in 2023 as Connecticut will be realigning things.
Big one on Tuesday for Post 2
Bristol has a huge game against West Hartford on Tuesday from Conard high school (5:45 p.m.).
It will be the second contest of the season between the programs.
Post 2 dropped a tough 5-0 decision to West Hartford on June 13, but the locals are looking to square the series.
Bristol was three-hit that evening while Matt Beaucar pitched well but drew the loss in 5.2 innings of work.
The venue has changed for West Hartford as the usual battles against Bristol typically take place from Hall High School down the road a bit.
Welcome Latko
Bristol Eastern’s Cole Latko was a late addition to the Bristol roster this year and will provide depth as a back-up infielder at second base and shortstop.
He’s also listed as a DH on the Post 2 roster.
Latko will bring a little pop to the batting order and should be a solid contributor when given a little playing time.
The Schedule
This Thursday, Bristol is back in action against Simsbury at 5:30 p.m. from Muzzy Field in Bristol.
From there, Post 2 is off until July 5 when the program is back on the road – in Simsbury – for a Zone 1 confrontation at Memorial Field in Simsbury.
Game time is 6:30 p.m.
The showdown starts a stretch of five consecutive road games for Bristol.
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