HS baseball: Plainfield downs Stonington, 6-4

There were plenty of smiles in the Plainfield dugout after the Panthers 6-4 win over the Bears in Stonington on Tuesday afternoon.
They didn’t know it yet, but the Plainfield players had given their coach, John Schiffner, his 450th career victory.
What was important at the time was that the win continued the Panthers comeback from a rather dreadful start.
“We’re above .500 now and we weren’t expected to win more than two games this year,” shortstop Nik Ververis said.
The Panthers climbed to 7-6 overall thanks to a 16-hit attack and some solid pitching from Connor Green and Barry Maily.
“This team in particular has been a great deal of fun,” Schiffner said. “They have got better and I, honestly, thought we had a chance of going 0-20.”
The Panthers got their revenge for a 7-1 loss to Stonington at home with four runs in the first inning. Ververis (4-5, 3 runs scored) keyed the uprising with a two-run double, Nate Bedard added a run scoring two-bagger and Jeff Buchert knocked in the other with a single.
The Panthers made it a five-run lead in the fourth when Ververis tripled and scored on a Devin Kotulsky (3-4, 3 singles) base knock.
But the Bears put a little scare into the Panthers when they scored one in the bottom of the fourth on a sacrifice fly by Joe Sartor.
Green (1-2) was touched for three more in the fifth when losing pitcher Jay Hespeler and Cody Candelet singled and centerfielder Tyler Tavares put one over the fence in the field he patrols, a three-run shot to cut Plainfield’s lead to one.
“My number two hitter had a nice home run,” Stonington coach Duffy Grace said, “but, we didn’t hit the ball like we can.”
Plainfield got an insurance run in the sixth off reliever jake Berkowitz on a Kotulsky RBI single.
Maily did the rest as he came on in the sixth for the Panthers and allowed just one hit in the last two innings.