Holy Cross baseball and softball will play for state championships this weekend after winning their Class S semifinal games Wednesday.
The top-seeded Crusader baseball team got no-hit, yet scored three runs and beat No. 5 Housatonic Regional-Falls Village 3-1 at Muzzy Field in Bristol. Second-seeded Holy Cross softball outlasted third-seeded Wamogo Regional-Litchfield 2-1 at Frank Biondi Softball Field on the campus of West Haven High School.
Both Crusader clubs await their championship opponents. Baseball plays the winner of No. 2 Lyman Memorial-Lebanon or No. 6 Morgan-Clinton. Morgan lost to St. Paul in the 2016 Class S final.
Softball faces the winner of No. 9 St. Paul Catholic and No. 12 Coventry.
The championship games will be either Friday or Saturday. Baseball is at Middletown’s Palmer Field while softball will be at either West Haven or DeLuca Field in Stratford.
Here’s what happened in each game:
BASEBALL
No. 1 Holy Cross 3, No. 5 Housatonic 1: Mountaineer pitcher Scott Dignacco was unhittable, but walks and errors allowed the Crusaders to move on.
Trailing 1-0 with one out in the bottom of the fourth, Matt Bonvicini drew a walk. Tim Zupkus followed with a walk, then Connor Goggin reached on a catcher’s interference. With the bases loaded, Mike Keating walked to score Bonvicini with the tying run. A grounder to first base by Will Marshall plated Zupkus to put Holy Cross ahead 2-1. An error on the same play allowed Goggin to score to make it 3-1.
Fran Phelan allowed a single run in the first inning, then shut out Housatonic the rest of the way. He fired a complete game and gave up seven hits. Phelan struck out eight and walked two.
SOFTBALL
No. 2 Holy Cross 2, No. 3 Wamogo 1: This game was deadlocked at zero headed into the bottom of the fourth, where the Crusaders scored twice.
With one out, Allie Brown singled. Sarah Lawton’s hard ground ball to second was mishandled for an error, putting runners at first and second. Alexandra Lombardo singled the other way to right field to get Holy Cross on the board, 1-0. After an infield pop, Lizzy Diorio hit a fly ball to right field that was dropped for a second Wamogo error. Lawton scored, and the Crusaders led 2-0.
The Warriors attempted a final charge in the seventh. With one out, Savannah Wheeler singled. Caitlyn Maliszewski tripled to right field to score Wheeler and make the score 2-1. Wamogo was a run away from a tie, but Lawton stranded Maliszewski at third base with back-to-back strikeouts to end the game.
Lawton used 91 pitches to complete seven innings. She gave up one run, four hits, struck out 11 and walked none.
Holy Cross will play in its third straight state title game and is taking aim at its third consecutive championship plaque.
