By Michael Letendre

WATERFORD – The one thing about the Bristol Senior American Legion baseball team this past season was that the veteran group was an experienced crew.

And Post 2 used that experience to steal a game or two along the way.

After a second place finish in Zone 1 (10-6), Bristol gave it a whirl in postseason play – falling to Waterford in Pod D action over two amazingly contested showdowns despite a depleted roster.

“I told the guys I was proud of the way they fought all year,” said Bristol coach Jerry LaPenta after his team fell to Waterford. “We’ve been short-handed a little bit. We had some guys get hurt. We had a couple guys bail on us.”

During Bristol’s final game of the postseason, in the rematch against Waterford, Bristol was down to just 10 healthy bodies over the 7-5 season-ending loss.

That same day, Post 2’s four two-way players were involved in Junior American Legion tournament action and weren’t available for the Senior’s team postseason run.

But those 10 players battled to the final pitch, giving Waterford – the squad that eventually went on to play in the American Legion Baseball Northeast Regional – two games worth of headaches.

“The kids fought hard all year,” said LaPenta.

And the veteran portion of the squad, consisting of Dylan Woodsome, Tyler Stickels, Chris Osuch, Tyler Martin, Ryan Fradette, Adam Caron, Matt Beaucar, Alex Canzellarini and Roberto Cruz, all laid it on the line over the summer months of June and July – playing admirably along the way.

“A big chunk of those guys have been playing Legion baseball for a long time,” said LaPenta. “They had success playing in the juniors, won the states, and stuck together. I’m really proud of them and what they’ve done.”

At the top of Bristol’s batting order, Elliot Norris and Jaydon Churchill were an amazing offensive/defensive duo and are eligible to return next summer.

Post 2 also hopes to return its core of tremendous Junior players of Connor Cyr, Rio Fernandez, Ryan Maglio, and Michael Roalf.

Bristol needs to build around that continent of players in order to be successful in 2023.

“Hopefully, they can spread the word about Legion,” said LaPenta of those possible returners. “It’s still quality baseball. Hopefully, they can get some guys to come out. I think I’m going to have to do a little more recruiting in November and December just to make sure we can get the numbers that we need.”

Bristol had trouble against West Hartford this season but went 10-2 against the rest of the zone.

That record would have been much better but Newington and Naugatuck both folded before the start of the regular season.

Simsbury, Torrington, and Meriden proved challenging over stretches of the campaign but Post 2 made big comebacks against those programs when needed.

And if you watched carefully, you saw a good brand of ball being played by the boys in Bristol from start to finish.

“It was a great summer,” said LaPenta. “It was really enjoyable. Anytime you can finish four games over .500, to battle the way the kids did, [it’s good]. The rewarding thing for me is I had a lot of coaches and umpires tell me what a good group guys we have, playing the game the right way.”

And that’s the most important part for LaPenta.

Wins and losses come and go but this group did a tremendous job respecting the game and for LaPenta, that’s the most important part.

“I take that as a compliment but it’s also a complement to them,” said LaPenta. “They play the game, they play the right way with respect because we’ve played teams where the teams aren’t good and it’s a reflection as a coach. So, I thanked [the players] for that.”

“All in all, it was just another good Legion season. Every team loses its last game except one. That’s baseball.”

Waterford ended up advancing to the Northeast Regional 

Even after losing to Danbury in the best-of-three state championship tilt, Waterford represented the state of Connecticut at the Northeast Regional which was contested from Shrewsbury, Massachusetts (August 3-7).

Danbury, the Connecticut State Champions, did not have enough kids to compete due to other commitments and Waterford was the next team up.

Waterford lost to the host team, Shrewsbury 13-3, defeated Hampden, Maine 10-1 before being eliminated by Greece Post of New York (5-2) to end its postseason run.

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