No. 10 New London takes it to No. 5 Don Bosco in baseball game

NORWAY — When the New London basketball team entered the rankings for the first time in December this past season, it lost the next game it played.

It nearly happened again when the baseball team entered the Class 1A rankings at No. 10 this week and had to go extra innings to eke out a victory over Danville. Danville has a 5-9 record, New London is 15-0.

Tuesday the Tigers faced a much more daunting challenge in Class 1A’s No. 5 Don Bosco, who started the season No. 1. The Tigers answered the challenge with 11 hits and a 10-2 lead after four innings when lightning and heavy rain forced the game to be canceled.

Even though it is not a game, the Tigers know the game they played.

Kooper Schulte was 3-for-4 and scored a pair of runs in the nongame, non-win for New London.

Don Bosco’s Cael Frost clubbed a solo home run to start the game, and New London starting pitcher Hecniel Rodriguez walked the next three batters. But a caught stealing, a strikeout and a pop-up got the Tigers to bat. And bat they did.

New London showed how it is second in 1A with a .418 team batting average, taking a 3-1 lead by the time the inning was over. New London tacked on two more runs in the second. Seth Bailey and Schulte singled. Singles by Tucker Gibbar and Carter Allen plated two more runs to give the Tigers a 5-1 lead.

New London sent 10 batters to the plate in the third inning. A Ryan Richey single, two walks, a Josh Catala single, a Gibbar single and a pair of Don Bosco errors totaled five runs.

Officially, none of it happened. but it is evidence of the Tigers’ prowess and Don Bosco saw it firsthand.