19U American Legion Baseball: Fairfield's Comeback Attempt Comes Up Short As Danbury Prevails

Sam Swanson waits for a pitch during Fairfield's loss to Danbury

The 19U Danbury Westerners defeated Fairfield Militia 12-10 in an almost three-hour affair on Wednesday at Kiwanis Field in Fairfield.

Fairfield trailed 12-4 midway through the fourth inning and chipped away but the comeback attempt came up a bit short. 

Danbury got on the board in the top of the second. With the bases loaded and two out, Cody Waterbury singled in two runs to put the Westerners on top 2-0. 

Fairfield came back with three runs in the bottom half of the inning thanks to three bases-loaded walks. 

Danbury tied it up in the top of the third on Alex Nunez' RBI double to right field. The next batter, Marcos Dominguez Jimenez hit a line drive to short that was dropped, allowing Nunez to come in and score to give the Westerners a 4-3 lead. 

Later in the inning, Nicholas Mercing hit a sacrifice fly to center to plate another run and put Danbury up 5-3.

Fairfield got a run back in the third. With Sam Swanson at second, Sean McAdams grounded out to short. Swanson attempted to move to third on the throw and the throw back across the diamond in an attempt to get Swanson at third sailed high allowing him to come in and score. 

Danbury opened up the game in the fourth, scoring seven times to take a 12-4 lead. Danbury scored three runs on a couple of wild pitches and then a bases-loaded hit by pitch to go up 8-4. Another run came across on Dominguez Jimenez's RBI single to make it 9-4. 

Later in the inning, with the bases loaded, Ryan Dillillo hit a sacrifice fly to center field to plate another run. Danbury capped the scoring for the inning and their scoring for the game when Waterbury hit a two-run double to center field. Waterbury was 4-4 with four runs batted in on the game. 

Fairfield chipped into the deficit in the bottom half of the frame. With runners on second and third and one out, a dropped third strike allowed Reese Palumbo to come in and score. Two batters later, with runners at the corners, Nick Hios singled to right to plate Joey D'Elia. Later in the inning, with the bases loaded, McAdams singled to left field to bring in Charlie Mulhall and Hios and cut the deficit to 12-8. 

In the fifth, The Militia cut further into the lead. With the bases loaded and two out, Hios hit a hard ground ball to short that got by the Danbury shortstop, allowing D'Elia and Corcoran to score. 

Fairfield got the tying run to the plate in the sixth, but couldn't push any more runs across. Jack Martin was strong out of the bullpen for Fairfield, throwing 1.2 innings to keep The Militia in striking distance late. 

Fairfield drops to 10-2 on the season and will face Trumbull on Thursday at 5:30 at Kiwanis Field. 

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