Fairfield 19U Defeats Ridgefield in FCBL Semifinal

Joey Sangiuolo delivers a pitch to Johnny Briody 

Fairfield 19U defeated Trumbull 5-1 in the Fairfield County Baseball League Semifinals. They advance to the championship where they play Trumbull. They will need to beat Trumbull on Wednesday and Thursday to win the championship, while Trumbull will only need to win once. 

Ridgefield got on the board in the top of the first. Alex Hanna led off with an infield single to shortstop. He stole second and moved to third on a sacrifice bunt by Jason Hartnett. The next batter, Johnny Briody drove a ball deep enough to right field for the sacrifice fly and Ridgefield led 1-0.  

Fairfield came right back in the bottom half of the frame. One-out walks to Jack Pierce and Christian Homa put two runners on for Blake Benway. Benway drove the full-count pitch to deep left-center field for the two-run double to give Fairfield the lead. 

Two batters later, Fairfield would add another run as Anthony Espinoza doubled over the center fielders head to bring in Benway. 

After some struggles in the first inning, Fairfield pitcher Joey Sangiuolo settled down. He allowed just the one run on four his, while striking out four and walking one in a complete game.

Between his sidearm delivery and his mix of a fastball and multiple off-speed pitches, Sangiuolo was able to keep the Ridgefield hitters off balance all game long. 

Fairfield would tack on in the sixth. Brady Pomer, Espinoza and Charlie Mount all singled to load the bases with one out. The next batter, Sam Weinstein laced a single to center-field to bring in Pomer and re-load the bases. 

Jack Hernandez followed that up with a perfectly executed safety-squeeze sacrifice bunt to bring in Espinoza and cap the scoring.