Sheehan wills top-seeded Waterford past Bristol in American Legion 19U Tournament elimination round

South Windsor — As the dirt below his feet caved in, leaving clumps stuck to the bottom of his cleats and the chance of slipping after every pitch, Waterford American Legion ace Colby Sheehan continued his methodical dissection of Bristol on the mound. He had to. He had no other choice, regardless of if the rain destroyed the Rotary Field mound earlier this week: It's do-or-die now and Sheehan knew that. He relished it. Five complete innings. Sixty-eight pitches. Fifty strikes. Seven strikeouts to just one walk. Only four base runners allowed. An emphatic and complete demoralization. "The mound conditions weren't ideal, but I pushed through it and threw strikes," Sheehan said. "That's the name of the game, and when we got up early, it definitely helped out." Sheehan's performance, compounded with a big first inning at the plate from his teammates, guided Waterford to a 7-0 win over Bristol in the elimination round of the American Legion 19U state tournament Saturday at Rotary Field, and kept its hopes for an undefeated championship defense alive. "Last year, this year, same thing: We're the top overall seed," Waterford manager Joe Mariani said. "We have a bull's-eye on us. Everybody knows that we're pretty good, so we're going to get everybody's best. The best part about this team, though, is that every guy comes ready to play every day." Waterford, like it has so many times before this summer, batted around the order and ripped off five runs in the bottom of the first inning to build an early — and evidently insurmountable — lead behind Sheehan's arm. "I was happy with how Colby pitched," Mariani said. "He was great, as always. We played solid defense, too. Pitching, defense and timely hitting: Baseball 101." After Sheehan retired three of Bristol's first four batters, and allowing one of his four hits of the afternoon, lead-off hitter Matt Shampine drilled a rope into center field to put the first Waterford runner on. That's all it took. Cooper Siragusa shot a double into right field seconds later, scoring Shampine, before Jace Wolfradt, Brooks Lane and Alex Picardi loaded the bases on the next three at-bats by way of two hit-by-pitches and a walk — scoring Siragusa in the process. Zaydin Martinez sent a high-flying ball to right center that landed all but 10 feet shy of a home run and scored two more, leaving Martinez, the lone man on, pointing to an unglued Waterford dugout from second base. Yet the momentum soon dissipated, and Bristol buckled down in the field, allowing just one baserunner through the next three innings. But it couldn't muster anything of its own behind the plate with Sheehan pounding the strike zone with fastballs sitting in the low 90s and a devastating breaking ball that Bristol hitters seldom attempted to make contact with. "Our strong point has always been our pitching," Mariani said. "We have arms that we feel very comfortable with on the mound. That's been great for us." Sheehan, meanwhile, credits his teammates for catching everything he allowed to escape the batter's box. "Those fielders, man," Sheehan said with a smile. "I was trusting them to make plays, and they did. This is the state tournament, though, and these are must-win games. I had to do whatever I could to help my team win." Sheehan does have a point; Waterford went quiet from behind the plate after its big first inning, partly due to what Mariani described as "a break in the action" the last two days between Waterford's last game, putting the onus on Sheehan to shoulder the load. "Every time we stop playing, the first one back is the hardest," Mariani said. "Now that we're in a routine and we'll be playing every day, I think we'll come out and we'll hit better. We hit it decent today, not as good as we can." Waterford notched five hits but got four runners on after they were hit by pitches and three others by walk. Bristol's lone streak of momentum — when it had two runners on in the top of the fifth — was curbed by a diving catch from Wolfradt in foul territory, ending the inning, and with it any chance Bristol had left. Waterford snapped its dry spell with two runs in the bottom of the fifth by way of a Bristol error that scored Shampine and Siragusa, putting the game out of reach and pulling Sheehan from the mound. Kian Gordy pitched the final two innings and, like Sheehan, suffocated Bristol, allowing just two baserunners while striking out four. The shutout win pushes Waterford into the next round of the state tournament, when it'll play at No. 4 South Windsor Sunday at 4 p.m. "There have been times in the past that we go play a team that we're better than and the team sits back," Mariani said. "This team doesn't do that. We have 16 guys that are all pulling for each other. We don't have any 'me' guys. They all sacrifice." j.mccreven@theday.com