Sitting around the kitchen table at the Caputa household on Sunday was a little bit awkward for Joe Caputa and his son Dominic.
The father-son duo had spent time on a baseball diamond nearly every day this summer. On Sunday, however, they sat at the table without a glove or a bat.
Joe Caputa, an assistant coach for the South Windsor 10U Little League team, and 10-year-old Dominic, one of the 13 all-stars on the roster, sat there as champions.
The team reached the Eastern Regional tournament — the final stage for the 10-and-under age group — and won six of seven games, including the New England title and the Eastern Regional championship. They received championship rings and won five banners along the way, first the district title, then sectionals and states before capping off their week in Cranston, Rhode Island, with the New England and Eastern Regional titles.
When the players step into the South Windsor Little League complex next year they will see those banners and a sign along the fence with their names, remembering the incredible run they had.
New England pool play began with a 9-0 win over Massachusetts on Aug. 7. The team, proudly donning new sky blue jerseys with “CONNECTICUT” across the front, outscored its opponents 34-7 through its first three games.
At 3-0 in pool play, South Windsor clinched a spot in the New England championship game — a rematch against Massachusetts. The team then dropped its first game of the summer, 6-5 to Maine, while saving its top two pitchers for the upcoming title games.
The New England final began at 8 p.m. Friday, and, for the most part, South Windsor’s bats had gone to bed. They didn’t score after bringing one across in the bottom of the first inning, and Massachusetts threatened with runners on first and second base in the top the fifth. The ball was then hit into play and the runners advanced while South Windsor tried to make a play at third. That throw, however, sailed over the sliding runner, who was picked up by his coach and directed toward home.
The runner was called out for coaches’ interference, and South Windsor retained its 1-0 lead, which held until the final out.
“It was just a ginormous, huge play in the outcome of that game,” Caputa said. “The baseball gods were looking down at us.”
South Windsor lost a game in similar fashion last year.
Zach Powers pitched five innings in the New England championship game, allowing no runs on three hits with six strikeouts and no walks.
The boys had to wake up early for the 10 a.m. Eastern Regional championship game on Saturday against the team from Pennsylvania, which had been resting since playing Friday. That extra rest, however, didn’t help solve South Windsor with Lyle Dresser on the mound.
Dresser pitched a complete game shutout while striking out three and allowing five hits, earning him tournament Most Outstanding Player honors.
“We scored so many runs in the last two months, to win these two games with two shutouts from our top two pitchers, it couldn’t have been a better ending,” Caputa said.
Hits from Elliot Wenzel and Jacob Zande helped South Windsor increase its lead to 3-0 entering the sixth inning, but Dresser didn’t need any insurance. He actually only needed three pitches.
The first pitch of the inning was a line drive base hit to right field. The very next pitch, a 6-4-3 fielder’s choice that nabbed the runner at second but left the batter at first. And the final pitch of the game and of South Windsor’s miraculous run was a 1-6-3 double play.
Now, for many of the kids, the gloves and bats will be exchanged for helmets and shoulder pads as they prepare for tackle football, which began during their run. The team will reunite in full at a ballpark one more time this summer after being invited to watch Tuesday’s Hartford Yard Goats game from a box suite.
“For me, it hasn’t set in yet,” Caputa said, full of adrenaline after supervising his 9- and 10-year-olds as they spent time bonding on and off the field. “But just seeing the emotions after the win yesterday. Disbelief, the excitement, the happiness, the players faces, the coaches, the parents. These kids are never going to forget that moment and what they accomplished, which is nothing short of amazing.”
