Ray Curren – Elm City News
May 12, 2008 “The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry.” - Robert Burns
Muchie Dagliere entered the 2008 season, as almost all coaches do, with a positive outlook and looking to return to the state tournament. In his first year at the helm, Dagliere’s Wilbur Cross baseball team had shown some spurts of turning the corner - beating teams like Sheehan, West Haven, and Cheshire - but had lost six of seven to finish up the campaign, leaving the Governors at 7-13, agonizingly one game short of the tournament. But Wilbur Cross regrouped, prepared diligently for this spring - and then proceeded to lose its first nine games of the season.
Without a doubt, the most painful of those losses came in the third game of the season when Cross took a 4-1 lead into the seventh inning against cross-town rival Hillhouse, who was looking for its first conference win in three years. The Academics exploded for eight runs in a 9-4 upset, and Dagliere was left to try to put together a fragile squad just six days into the season.
“The early part of the season was frustrating at many levels,” Dagliere said. “First of all, I thought talent-wise, we had enough where we should have been able to be competitive. But it was the mental part that was letting us down. When it came down to it, in key situations, we just weren’t making plays and the other team was.”
With their original plans in tatters and a short season threatening to spiral out of control, the Governors have found themselves in the last two weeks, however. Wilbur Cross posted a relatively easy 9-3 win over Lyman Hall on April 22, beat Hillhouse in the rematch, and then went on to topple Oronoque Division rivals North Haven and Career in back-to-back games, with pitcher Joe Neagle throwing a shutout against the Indians.
Dagliere credits the leadership of Neagle, junior Elvin Rodriguez, and Jesse Pittman to keep his team afloat when they could have easily sunk after the 0-9 start to the campaign. “The win against Lyman Hall really got us going,” Dagliere said. “It’s tough to play when you’re losing a lot, and we’ve gotten better, but we still have a lot to improve on.” Like Hillhouse, Wilbur Cross relies on New Haven as its feeder system, and the lack of kids not only playing baseball, but sticking with baseball makes things difficult.
Dagliere, who has been with the program for six years even though this is just his second as head coach, has seen a dropoff in the number of talented kids coming into Wilbur Cross. “We’re not as fortunate as some teams who have a feeder system that constantly gives them players,” Dagliere said. “Our feeder system, unfortunately, is fairly weak, and there’s not much baseball from the age of 12 to 14 to keep them going after Little League. Then, sometimes, they get frustrated by the lopsided scores at the freshman and JV levels and it makes it tough to keep them playing and learning.”
Dagliere has helped raise the money for a batting cage at Rice Field and new uniforms for the Governors. And, even though Wilbur Cross has been eliminated from post-season contention this season, with Hand, Cheshire, and a rematch with Lyman Hall remaining, a couple of upsets would be able to send off the seniors with a much better taste in their mouths than there was in the cold beginning of April.
ENOUGH ALREADY: I talked at length about the tragic death of Shelton coach Ed Marocco a couple of weeks ago, but unfortunately the SCC had to deal with two more deaths in the last week or so, and in both cases the word untimely wouldn‘t begin to do them justice.
First, on May 4, Shelton High Housemaster Thomas Gersz died of a heart attack at the age of 43, leaving behind two young daughters and a young son. In addition to being a integral part of the Shelton High community that was already reeling from the loss of Marocco, Gersz was involved in baseball almost his entire life, including at Sheehan, where he was a 1983 graduate.
Gersz was also a member of the CIAC Baseball Committee, the same committee where Marocco was the Coaches Committee Chairman. Shelton postponed its game last Monday night against Amity, which was already going to be emotional because it was scheduled to be the first time the rivals had met since Marocco’s death. The game was rescheduled for Tuesday. Shelton did play Tuesday and Wednesday, splitting games against Fairfield Prep and Cheshire. Shelton High was closed on Thursday, so students and faculty could attend the funeral for Gersz, which was held in Wallingford, where he still lived.
Sheehan also did not play last Monday, but played the next day against Cheshire, winning that game, but losing the next two days, to Lyman Hall and Amity. Meanwhile, if things could be worse, they were in West Haven, where last Monday (one day after Gersz’s death), 14-year-old Ralph Russo was killed while riding his bicycle on Captain Thomas Boulevard in West Haven. Russo was only in eighth grade, but had come up through the Little League ranks in West Haven and had cousins on the West Haven squad. Russo’s funeral was held last Friday. In situations as tough as these, all you can say is God bless both families and their friends.
AROUND THE HORN: North Haven must win its final three games to qualify for the state tournament, and it’s been a while since we‘ve had a state tournament without North Haven. In fact, if you know when, e-mail me …
Many teams are in a schedule bind with as many as five games to play in the season‘s final week, but it does appear the weather should hold up for them, at least through this weekend …
Once again, the SCC Tournament starts Tuesday with the wild-card round, games at 4 and 7 p.m. at West Haven High … It‘s not that we‘re calling Class L a little bit soft compared with some of the other classes, but after Guilford, who is currently the top seed (as they were last year when the Indians won the Class L title), comes Platt Tech as the No. 2 seed. Only 17 teams have a winning record and as few as 20 teams may qualify. That could open it up for someone like Law, East Haven, Sheehan, or Hand, all of whom are more than capable of making a postseason run ...
You also have to give Career a more than decent shot looking at the Class S draw, where Ansonia is currently the top seed at 11-4. Although in the crapshoot, St. Bernard and Notre Dame of Fairfield lurk. There’s got to be a better system for how we seed these teams, doesn’t there? …
Notre Dame continues to play its home games at Noyes Field, where it looks like they will finish the season …
As if Guilford needed the help, Will Jolin threw a complete game 2-hitter last Saturday against Law, only his second of the season and first since the first week of April. It was surprising that there weren’t more games played Saturday, but with the combination of testing and proms, many teams chose to push their rained out games from Friday into this week.
GAME OF THE WEEK Hand at Shelton, Monday, 7 p.m. - Senior Night at Shelton may have big significance for both teams, particularly for seeding in the upcoming state tournament (yes, it‘s almost that time already, folks). The Gaels still have some aspirations to make their mark in the SCC Tournament as well, but they‘ll probably have to win a few games before they get to Monday. Tuesday night is the opening round of the SCC Tournament.
PLAYER OF THE WEEK Ryan Maghini, Hand - Maghini somehow found a way to win a pair of games in a matter of hours last Monday against Jonathan Law. Maghini finished the suspended game from earlier in the season, winning 5-4 in 12 innings (only one last Monday). Maghini then started and won the regularly scheduled game, a 7-2 Tigers victory which put them into the state tournament.
INSIDE THE NUMBERS 2
Number of pitchers named Neagle who were able to shut out North Haven last week. Last Wednesday, the Indians were blanked 4-0 by Wilbur Cross pitcher Joe Neagle, and in their next game on Saturday, North Haven fell 3-0 to Branford‘s Rob Neagle. Overall, the Indians have been shut out in three straight games and needed to win their final three games to qualify for the state tournament.
POWER RANKINGS
1) Guilford (15-2; Last Week 1) – Did we doubt the Indians at one point? That seems like a bad idea.
2) Amity (12-3; LW 4) – Still five games left to play for the Spartans, they‘ll be busy this week.
3) Branford (14-3; LW 3) – Not exactly stiffest of competition, but seven wins on the bounce impressive.
4) Xavier (13-4; LW 2) – Had a tough schedule, but still dropped a couple of games to the Indians.
5) Notre Dame (11-6; LW 5) – Xavier stopped their streak on Saturday, but it was quite a run they had.
6) Career (10-5; LW 8) – Lost to Cross, but won their next two Oronoque games for a nice rebound.
7) Shelton (9-5; LW 9) – Just like Legion season: Gaels scheduled to play five straight days this week.
8) Hand (9-7; LW 11) – Still riding that rollercoaster, but wouldn‘t want to face them in June if hot.
9) Sheehan (8-8; LW 7) – Maybe the Titans are just setting themselves up for the postseason run.
10) Jonathan Law (8-9; LW 6) – Had a tough week, but at least they‘ll be in the state tournament.
11) Foran (9-8; LW 10) – Happy to be back in the state tournament, but would like to help seed a little.
12) West Haven (10-6; LW 13) – Play Platt Tech on Thursday, Panthers have won 14 straight games.
13) East Haven (9-7; LW 12) – Nothing but home games left for Easties, all they need are some lights.
14) Hamden (5-11; LW 14) – Not impossible, but will be very tough for Dragons to get to eight wins.
15) North Haven (5-12; LW 15) – Have scored two runs or less in 10 of their 17 games this season.
16) Cheshire (5-11; LW 16) – Going to have to finish strong once again to qualify for the postseason.
17) Derby (6-9; LW 17) – How hard will it be for the Raiders to get those last two wins to qualify?
18) Lyman Hall (4-11; LW 18) – Holding onto tournament hopes with just one week to go in season.
19) Wilbur Cross (4-13; LW 20) – Coming on late in the season and looking to play spoiler.
20) Fairfield Prep (2-14; LW 19) – It was a little late, but the Jesuits did pick up a nice win over Hamden.
21) Hillhouse (2-16; LW 21) – Trying to find a way to get themselves one more win before the season ends.
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