Ruden Sports News

STAMFORD — Things that did not happen during Danbury’s 15-13, 9-inning win over Westhill today: There were no touchdowns. There were no pins. No six points coming from Nick Smith or Kai O’Dell, better known perhaps for their work, respectively, with the Hatters’ football and wrestling teams, though they were most consequential to today’s outcome.

The Hatters won despite walking 12 batters, a rare letdown by what has been a near-flawless staff that was bailed out by the offense’s 17 hits. The Vikings committed five errors and an equal number of mental mistakes, yet overcame a five-run deficit and nearly won the game.

The only inning in which neither team scored, of course, was the 8th, as dinners were going cold on kitchen tables. There only was an 8th inning because Danbury centerfielder Jackson Ciccone made a spectacular diving catch in the bottom of the 7th to rob Mike Edwards with two outs and runners on the corners.

After Smith’s home run and Thai-ler Sestokas’ RBI single in the 9th gave Danbury what proved to be its winning margin, it looked like the Vikings had another rally in them with the help of a bad-hop single leading off the bottom of the inning and a muffed game-ending double play ball.

But Kai O’Dell finished off 2 2/3 innings of stellar relief as Danbury’s fourth pitcher, which was even more impressive because that was 2 1/3 innings more than O’Dell had pitched this season. Yet Danbury coach Shaun Ratchford had no qualms moving him from shortstop after three straight pitchers had control problems.

“I was very impressed with Kai,” Ratchford said. “He threw that one-third of an inning and got an out and then couldn’t find the plate. He’s got the mentality from the wrestling that the moment won’t be too big. It doesn’t mean he won’t fail, it doesn’t mean that he won’t execute, but the moment is not going to overwhelm him and that’s what I wanted today. Both teams were loud, both teams were into the game, which you love.”

Coming onto the mat for a championship match probably is a more taxing situation than coming into a game with runners in scoring position with one out and your team up by a run in the bottom of the seventh, but O’Dell gave up a sacrifice fly and then mastered the situation.

“It’s still nerve-wracking, my heart was still going,” said O’Dell, who won league, Class LL and State Open wrestling titles just two months ago. “I pitched all growing up. My team trusts me, I trust them. I said I’m just going to throw groundballs and that’s going to be that, we’re going to win this game.”

The win moved Danbury (15-3, 11-2 FCIAC) into first place in the league standings, a half game ahead of Ridgefield. The teams meet Wednesday night to end the regular season.

Smith, who is headed to West Point to play football and is accustomed to seeing both sides of the scoreboard in double digits, led the way with a single, double, home run and four RBIs. Six other players had two hits, with Alex Nunez, who homered, and Sestokas each driving in three runs.

Danbury trailed just twice, at 1-0 after the first and 11-10 going into the seventh inning, but scored three runs.

The Vikings (10-7, 8-4) need one more win to secure an FCIAC playoff berth and at worse would be in a tiebreaker if they lost their final three games. What the Vikings lacked in their defensive execution they made up with in resiliency as coach Mike Riveles brought up a JV pitcher for their fourth game in four days and two more callups at second base and designated hitter to shake up an offense that had scored seven runs in five games.

“Coming into this game we had no expectation because we didn’t have a plan for pitching,” Riveles said. “But guys showed heart and they showed fight, and that’s something we haven’t had to do yet this year. We either won big or lost big, or close games we had (Kyle) Kipp or (Eric) Osterhus on the mound, and that’s easy for us. Danbury is so tough. They are a tough team to play against.”

Mika Petersen homered, had three hits and drove in three runs for Westhill. Niko Seitaridis had two hits and four RBIs, while Jorge Hitlin added one hit and three RBIs.

It was a game Westhill was almost playing not to lose, yet still almost won.

“To get that close definitely hurts, especially after a long week,” Riveles said. “I am tired and I have not played. We fought and we fight again Saturday.”