Tied 2-2 going into the top of the seventh, Milford put together five runs on six hits to defeat Hamden, 7-2.
Cheech Giustino and Sean Clark led Post 196 with two hits apiece, while Pat Boyle added a single in the second. Dillon Brown and Andrew Patrick each went 1-for-4 with an RBI.
Brown added two innings of scoreless relief at the end of the game. Mac Taylor added a single and an RBI, while D.J. Kish added a sac fly RBI off the bench in the seventh.
“We’re going to try and win as many as we can,” said Milford coach Cliff Bugyi. “They’re all young kids, they’re playing hard and that’s all we can ask for.”
Hamden got on the board first in the bottom of the second, when Matt Murphy led off with a single and Erin Moskal drove him in with an RBI single.
Milford answered in the top of third with back-to-back singles from Giustino and Clark, before Boyle drove in a run with an RBI single.
Brown followed with an RBI double driving in Clark to give Milford a 2-1 lead.
Hamden tied it in the fourth when Vito Poupolo led off with a walk, Moskal followed with a single and Khaleb Cyril was hit in the thigh to load the bases. Murphy hit an RBI single, driving in Poupolo, before Milford got three straight outs to end the inning.
Tied 2-2, the Milford bats went dormant after the fourth, not able to squeak across any runs for Post 196 until the seventh.
In the top of the seventh, Giustino led off with a single before Clark and Boyle hit bunt singles, Clark down the third-base line, Boyle down first, to load the bases. Two batters later, Patrick hit a single over third to score
Tim Edson scored Clark and Boyle with a two-run single. Taylor then drove in Patrick with a RBI single before Kish scored Edson on a sac fly to give Milford a comfortable 7-2 lead.
With five runs of support, Brown closed out Hamden in the bottom of the seventh.
Despite loading the bases, he wiggled out of trouble with a groundout to short, a pop to short and a fly out to second to seal the 7-2 win for Post 196.
“The bunts were big,” Bugyi said. “We were trying to sacrifice and we end up with two base hits, then we hit a nice fly ball with one out. You have to have timely hitting and fortunately in that inning, we finally had it.”