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Greenwich High School Baseball Motivated for Postseason Run

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The Greenwich High School baseball team takes to the field during a recent game to start the season. (John Ferris Robben photo)
The Greenwich High School baseball team takes to the field during a recent game to start the season. (John Ferris Robben photo)

When the Greenwich High baseball team learned that their first scheduled game of the year had been cancelled this past Saturday, players and coaches seized the opportunity to stay indoors and put their brand new indoor batting cage to good use in preparation for another spring season.

“We were able to do some live pitching in our new indoor batting cage,” said GHS baseball coach Phil Tarantino. “We’re lucky to be in a good school with good facilities.”

Coming off a 13-10 season last year, Tarantino hopes to mold the program into a real FCIAC contender this year, despite losing a group of dominant seniors, including ace pitcher Mike Genaro, this past offseason to graduation. A bumpy start to last season was avenged with some postseason magic, as the Cardinals were winners of seven of their last 10 games.

After missing out on the 8-team FCIAC playoff, the Cardinals made a run in the state tournament last year with victories over conference opponents Fairfield Warde and Darien before falling in the LL quarterfinals as the No. 21 seed.

“We have to pitch well and play great defense,” said Tarantino. “I think we’ll have good speed in the outfield this year. We had two solid sophomore pitchers last year that will be with us. Their growth and our defense will determine how successful our season is.”

Junior southpaw Anthony Ferraro and junior Connor Langan will be the dominant duo that Tarantino goes with on the mound this year.

The Cardinals hope to get some pop out of their bats this year with the help of senior shortstop Colin Kelly and senior Kevin Woodring, but Tarantino wants to emphasize on the speed his team can bring in a small ball situation.

“Offensively, we’ll be able to run the bases well,” said Tarantino. “If we get some timely hitting, we could be a tough team to beat. Kevin Woodring has been with us since he was a sophomore. He has great power gap-to-gap, so we trust and know what we are going to get from him. Colin Kelly is also going to be a two-year player and he’ll be at the top of our lineup. Erik Mini swings a pretty good bat along with Paul Williams, another second-year player for us this season.”

This season, the FCIAC schedule for the Cardinals will host St. Joe’s, Wilton, Ridgefield, Trumbull, Norwalk, Trinity Catholic, Brien McMahon and New Canaan.

After a non-conference opener with New Milford on Thursday, Greenwich will travel to play their makeup game at Westhill and then take on Staples, Fairfield Warde, Stamford, Bridgeport Central, Danbury and Darien.

Included in their schedule will be a game on April 23 against Southington, where the Blue Knights will be seeking revenge after falling to Greenwich as the state’s top ranked team in the regular season. Just three days prior to hosting Southington, Greenwich will try to avenge their own loss against Staples, who knocked them out of the state tournament last year.

“We know the returning players are going to put in the work,” said Tarantino. “I tell them that if we work at it everyday, the end result will be exactly what we want it to be. We play so many games in such a short amount of time, we’re just trying to get better everyday. We played really well at the end of last year, and that’s always our goal.”

“If we can get on base, run a little bit and get some timely hitting from those guys, it will be a fun year.”

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