Southington High baseball honors late coach with tidy 4-1 win over Hall in Class LL tournament game

Two hundred twenty-five plastic cups – 139 blue, 86 white – stuck out of the fence surrounding the Southington High baseball field on Wednesday as the No. 4 Blue Knights defeated No. 13 Hall, 4-1, in a CIAC Class LL second-round game.

The cups spelled out “RIP Coach Lembo” in honor of longtime Southington baseball coach Charlie Lembo who died Saturday after a yearlong battle with cancer.

“Lembo on three! One. Two. Three. LEMBO!” The Blue Knights shouted as they broke their huddle ahead of the national anthem. They dedicated the season and this tournament run to the man who brought the program there in all 10 of his seasons at the helm.

Connor Whitehead took to the mound to start the game against the Warriors and pitched a gem, similar to the one he threw the last time the two teams met on April 14. In that game Whitehead struck out 11 Warriors in seven innings of work, allowing just one earned run.

“I looked at the box score (from April 14) and was like, ‘He’s going again,’” Southington interim head coach Stan Switala said. “(Whitehead’s) got the best breaking ball on the team right now and they struggle with the breaking ball – that’s why I went with him.”

Whitehead had to work his way out of a jam in the first before he quickly settled in. He finished five innings with two strikeouts, allowing just four hits and one walk. The Warriors, however, did score in the top of the fifth inning after a pitch in the dirt got past Southington catcher Aylward and allowed Hall’s Brian Chelli to cross the plate.

Whitehead, who played for Lembo, said, “We’re doing this for him – I feel like that’s our job.”

The Blue Knights struggled to get runs on the scoreboard early against Warriors starting pitcher Cole Kocienda. In the middle of the fourth inning, Switala called the team together as they ran off the field. “I said, ‘Connor is shoving right now. He’s giving everything he has right now, so we’ve got to put the runs together.’ Our model the whole year is play for a run every inning – and that’s what we did.”

The knockout punch, however, came from a sophomore who never played for the late coach.

Frank Buotot walked up to the plate in the bottom of the fifth inning, feeling like he needed to come up big for the team with a runner on second and two outs. The lefty anticipated a first-pitch fastball and when it came, he turned on it and blasted it deep over the right field fence just inside the foul pole.

“It’s just overwhelming, honestly. Adrenaline was pumping, I barely even knew what to do with myself, but it was great,” Buotot said of being mobbed by his teammates as he stomped on home plate.

North Carolina signee Jackson Rusiecki added an insurance run for the Blue Knights in the bottom of the sixth inning when he drilled a line drive that dipped and deflected off Hall left fielder Alex Ciafone’s glove, allowing Colin Crowley to sprint home from second base making the score 4-1.

The win sets up a rematch in the quarterfinals between Southington and No. 5 Newington, which defeated the Blue Knights, 12-5, on May 20.

“That’s what we wanted,” Switala said. “We’ve been waiting for Newington. They beat us on our home field, and now, it’s time.”

Lembo led the program to four state title games, but none of his teams were able to accomplish the feat. This year, however, the Blue Knights want to do it for him.

“We want to give back to him, his family and his legacy. It’s just very important for us to keep going for him because he would tell us to keep going,” Switala said.

“It’s been tough for the kids. There’s some kids that are very connected with him that have known him for years and every time – even when we go into our breakdown – it’s Coach Lembo this, Coach Lembo that. This season is all for him and his family. And they’re getting it done. I think we’re riding high going into Newington with this.”