Avon Legion Baseball Team Ready for Postseason Challenge

Avon’s American Legion baseball history resembles the plight of an orphaned stepchild.

At one point, the local lads were aligned with Unionville and at another with Simsbury. Avon ballplayers began to lose interest. Some would try out for Simsbury where the competition is always acute. Others would opt out completely.

Enter Brian Doyle, assistant baseball and hockey coach and former athletic director at Avon Old Farms School. Under his guidance, Avon has emerged and the boys under his tutelage are having fun.

Success breeds fun. Avon (21-7) has qualified for the state tournament for the third straight season and its first experience in the Round of 16 is imminent. No. 9 Avon engages tournament host and eighth seed Middletown Saturday at 9:30 a.m. at Palmer Field.

Saturday’s games, originally scheduled for nine innings, have been cut back to the high school norm of seven due to the weather forecast for oppressive heat.

Simsbury has long been one of the state’s Legion powerhouses. In addition to players from town, competition for slots was open to those from Avon, Canton, Granby and East Granby.

“Avon has always had good players but hasn’t had the depth of Simsbury,” Doyle said. “Some of the better kids in Avon would go with Simsbury. We had other kids who wanted to play American Legion, but not in Simsbury. Gladly they would include Avon but it was hard to make the team.”

Doyle applied to the state board for an Avon franchise and four years ago it reached fruition.

“We knew we had a good crop of kids born in 1991, ’92 and ’93, so we made a proposal and they said we’d need the support of Simsbury,” he said. “[Simsbury manager] Tim Vincent supported it. They said they’d help and they signed off on it, which was nice.”

The state board decrees that new programs begin with teams in the Junior Legion division and Avon finished second in Zone 1.

The Senior Division team went 16-10 in 2009 to qualify for the tournament, beat East Hartford in a play-in but lost 1-0 to perennial power Branford in the Round of 32. Avon went 19-8 last year to finish second in the zone, but was ousted from the playoffs by Trumbull in 11 innings.

This year, despite a rash of injuries, Avon finished second in what may be the state’s most competitive zone. The locals trounced Monroe Tuesday, 12-2, in a game terminated by the mercy rule (games end when the deficit is 10 or more beyond the seventh inning).

“We finally made [the Round of 16] for the first time and everybody’s excited,” Doyle said. “I told the kids that this is where it gets to be fun because there will be people at the game.”

With the play-in rounds complete, the tournament becomes a double-elimination affair. Should Avon fall to Middletown, the do-or-die game would come Sunday at 12:30 p.m. A berth in the winners’ bracket would probably pit Avon against top-seeded Branford at 6:30 p.m.

“We’re competing with the top teams in the state now,” Doyle said. “We have just three pitchers and one is hurt. We may not go deep but we may surprise someone. If we win Saturday, I like our chances [with Brendan Telfer on the hill].”

Telfer, a recent Avon High School grad headed to Roger Williams College as its top baseball recruit, had little problem disposing of Monroe. He’s 5-1 with a 1.83 ERA and 41 strikeouts in 42 innings.

Avon High grad Jared Sheiker, who fashioned a 4-0 record and 1.93 ERA in 40 innings, is unavailable due to arm soreness. Matt Jadovich, also 4-0 and sporting a 0.71 ERA, figures prominently in Doyle’s pitching mix. Jadovich was a three-sport athlete at Avon Old Farms.

Doyle was counting on Sean Lanahan as his ace but the Babson College sophomore underwent season-ending surgery in late June. He has drawn rave reviews from Doyle as an assistant coach.

”We were counting on him as an every-day first baseman and also a pitcher but he got hurt in college so he was only able to play in seven or eight games,” Doyle said. “He was hitting .464 at the time. When a small-town team loses a guy like that, it hurts.”

Liam O’Connor and Tyler D’Onofrio have been stalwarts in center field and right field, respectively.

Doyle says O’Connor, who will be a senior at Avon High in the fall, is “one of the best defensive outfielders I have ever coached.” He’s hitting .268, leads the team in sacrifice bunts with seven, walks with 16 and is second in stolen bases with seven. Such contributions are key elements in the small-ball approach that playing in a wooden-bat league requires.

Doyle tabs D’Onofrio as the team’s best athlete. D’Onofrio, an All-Stater in football and baseball, is planning to walk on as a football player at Purdue. He leads the team with nine stolen bases and is batting .295 with 15 RBI.

Third baseman Chris Frask (.309, team-high 17 RBI) is a sophomore at Purdue who walked on to the baseball team.

Connor Doyle (team-high 33 hits and 22 runs, .371, 15 RBI), a three-sport athlete at Avon Old Farms and the coach’s son, plays second base and catches. His younger brother Cody, who plays the same positions, went 4-for-5 against Monroe.

Shortstop Andrew Livingstone, a Zone I All-Star last summer, is batting .283 after a slow start. Left fielder Brandon Moss is second on the team in RBI with 16. Left-handed hurler Mike Castellani, an Old Farms junior, looms as the program’s future by virtue of his 2-2 record, 3.29 ERA and 34 innings pitched.

Coach Doyle is assisted by former Avon Legionnaire John Ponziani.