Printer Friendly Version - Valley-Westbrook Baseball Co-Op Gave it Their All in Nine-Win Season

Junior Caleb Winkley cleared the .400 threshold for a season batting average this spring for the Valley Regional-Westbrook baseball team as a Second Team All-Shoreline selection. The Warriors amassed nine wins and made both their conference and state tournaments. Photo by Wesley Bunnell/The Courier

The Valley Regional-Westbrook co-op baseball team entered the season with several uncertainties and a youthful group eager to prove itself. The Warriors emerged on the other side of things with a tandem of playoff berths while giving themselves plenty of performance-based confidence moving ahead.

The Warriors fought to a regular season mark of 9-11, but it was good enough to earn them a spot in the Class M State Tournament. Entering there at the No. 28 seed, Valley suffered a close 7-6 defeat to No. 5 Northwestern in a valiant effort for the first round. They finished with an overall mark of 9-13 after also making the Shoreline Conference Tournament as the sixth-ranked club and taking a quarterfinals loss to Morgan, 8-2.

First-year skipper Patrick Sirois knew there would be some questions to answer and hurdles to clear entering into the fold with a co-op club that was young. Yet he proclaims the Warriors answered the call in an efficient and productive manner by challenging themselves internally daily and outward by taking on any and all comers in and out of the conference.

“Our program goals are to compete and win the Shoreline and state tournaments. To do that, our everyday goal is to be competitive, and that includes practice and games,” said Sirois. “We want to compete in every single game we play. We were a young team who grew over the course of the year. I felt we did an above average job being competitive in conference play. We either won or played a close game in most circumstances. Out of conference, we played a very tough schedule in playing Tolland, South Windsor, and Sheehan twice. We have some work to do to be competitive on that level, but we showed we are capable by beating South Windsor.”

The South Windsor win that Sirois alluded to actually clinched Valley a spot in the big dance by virtue of it being its eighth triumph. The Warriors also capped off the regular season on a high note by edging out eventual Shoreline champion North Branford by a 1-0 final on May 18. Sirois detailed that the Warriors were in search of that complete game, where they applied the fundamentals from first pitch to final out. They did not quite achieve that objective, but they finished the year a lot closer to it than they started.

“First and foremost, our team developed over the course of the year a great deal. We had a group of players who took practice seriously and worked hard to get better,” said Sirois. “As a coaching staff, we thought with a young team it was important to play a full seven innings of clean baseball with no mental mistakes and limited physical errors. We also wanted to have that full game where we consistently made routine plays, and at the plate, put the ball in play with two strikes and swing at the right pitches in hitters counts. I think we did a great job of improving on this as the year went on, however, we still fell short of our goal of doing that for seven innings every game. By the end of the year, we were competitive for about five to six innings a game. Yet at the beginning of the year, we were only competitive for about three to four innings a game.”

Sophomore Kyle Leandri was a First Team All-Shoreline selection at shortstop after batting for a .438 average with 17 stolen bases and two home runs. Juniors of catcher Caleb Winkley (.401 batting average) and pitcher Braden Karcich (1.75 earned-run average in six starts) made the Second Team.

For team awards, Karcich was honored with the Coaches Award, given to a player who just does the right thing all the time on and off the field. Sophomore Kyle Litevich was named Most Improved Player, junior Jack McPherson garnered the Sportsmanship honor, and sophomore Logan Prue took home the Hustle Award.

“Kyle showed the most growth as a player throughout the year. With a light JV schedule, he worked hard every day in practice and really improved a drastic amount. Jack showed great character throughout the year. In both good and bad moments, he always kept himself under control in high pressure situations,” said Sirois. “As a program, we do a great job of working hard and hustling, and Logan is our best example of that.”

On the field, Josh Faucher acted as the club’s senior captain. He will continue to display his baseball, academic, and leadership acumen next season by committing to play at Mitchell College.

“He is a very smart and bright young gentleman who is going to continue his playing career at Mitchell College in New London next year as a pitcher,” said Sirois. “He was great to have on the team this year as an older presence and leader of the team.”

As far as the outlook into the next step of the 2025 campaign, it is an uncertain one–simply by virtue of the fact that the Warriors may not be part of a collaborative effort next spring with neighboring Westbrook. Still, the Warriors will look to continue their upward trajectory and ride the momentum of this slate on the elements it can control: heart, hustle, and maximum effort.

“Next year's outlook may vary drastically, as we are unsure if we are playing with Westbrook or not,” said Sirois. “Overall, we are trying to build a program that wins consistently, regardless of talent level. To do this, you need a competitive culture where everyone is 100% dedicated to the goal. This year was a giant step in the right direction for the culture of our team.”

The Valley Regional-Westbrook 2024 roster is comprised of seniors Faucher; juniors James Brzozowy, Karcich, Winkley, McPherson, Tanyon Champagne (of Westbrook), Nathan Rowland, Ben Stosse (from Westbrook); sophomores Gavin Abderhalden, Prue, Chase King, John Finn Heiser, William Sicignano, Patrick Finnegan, Leandri (from Westbrook), Litevich (of Westbrook); plus freshmen Jackson Baxter, (Westbrook) Luke Beighau, Jacob Bennett, John Blalock, Jacob Knox, Julian Mardjekaj, and Kaiden Werner (of Westbrook).

Sirois was assisted this spring by Derek Hanssen. Hanssen was the Westbrook baseball skipper for 18 years. Matt Amendola was the JV coach and another varsity assistant who has joined the team after being an assistant at Putnam the last few campaigns.