The Sea Unicorns edged the Bees, 5-4, in 12 innings on Friday at Dodd Stadium.
The Norwich Sea Unicorns evened the Futures Collegiate Baseball League championship series with a thrilling 5-4 extra-innings victory over the New Britain Bees on Friday before 2,197 fans at Dodd Stadium in Norwich.
The teams will meet on Saturday at 1:30 p.m. for a winner-take-all championship game at New Britain Stadium.
The two-time defending champion Sea Unicorns rallied from an early 4-0 deficit, tying it with two runs in the bottom of the ninth and then winning Game 2 of this best-of-three series on Bryce Detwiler’s broken bat single in the bottom of the 12th inning.
“I’m just happy I could pull through for my team,” Detwiler said. “We’ve been in extra innings for the past three games. We lost the first one in New Britain so we had to come back stronger than ever.”
The Bees had won the series opener also in walk-off fashion on Wednesday night, edging the Sea Unicorns on Camden Righi’s single in the bottom of the 10th inning.
New Britain took a 4-2 lead into the bottom of the ninth and was three outs away from winning its first Futures League title. Norwich, however, kept its historic three-peat hopes alive with a stunning rally.
Detwiler (UConn) sparked the Sea Unicorns comeback with a lead-off triple off left-handed reliever Evan Mello (Wheaton). Detwiler (2-for-4) scored on a wild pitch to make it 4-3.
C.J. Nolan (Fairfield) followed with a single to right. Nolan moved to second on a groundout by Clay Hartje (Johns Hopkins) and scored the tying run on a clutch single from Gavin O’Brien (UMass-Amherst).
Tied at 4 in the bottom of the 12th, the Sea Unicorns’ Chase Chaplin drilled a two-out double off reliever Lucas Kamonen. Michael Fiatarone pinch-ran for Chaplin. Following an intentional walk to Charlie Walsh (George Washington), Fiatarone raced home on Detwiler’s bloop single.
New Britain took a 3-0 lead in the top of the first against Norwich starter Matt Wootton (Eastern Connecticut State). After singles from Righi (UConn) and Colin Crowley (Winthrop), Bees first first baseman George Slauson (Saint Anselm) lofted a towering fly-ball that landed over the corner of the right field fence for a three-run homer.
New Britain added another run in the third inning on Jake Risedorf’s (Southern New Hampshire) sacrifice fly.
Norwich answered in the bottom of the third against Bees starter Colin Blake (Southern Connecticut State). After a walk and a pair of infield errors, Walsh laced a bases loaded two-run single to left, closing the gap to 4-2.
The Sea Unicorns got terrific relief outings from pitchers Gio Conte (Sienna), Matt Tabet (Amherst), and Erik Mathewson (Eastern Connecticut State).
Conte limited the Bees to just three hits and one run over six innings after replacing Wootton in the second inning. Tabet scattered three hits over three scoreless innings, while Mathewson, who earned the win, tossed two shutout innings in the 11th and 12th.
“This is Gio Conte’s second year with us and he’s gotten some big outs for us. I asked him to do way more than he should have out there and he showed up in spades,” Norwich manager Kyle Dembrowski said. “I can’t say enough good things about Gio. He gave us a shot to get something going in the ninth.”
This article originally appeared on The Bulletin: Norwich Sea Unicorns even championship series with walk-off win
Category: General Sports
