WHITE RIVER JUNCTION — The Hartford High baseball team got a dose of its past and present — and gave a tantalizing view of its immediate future — in a 16-3 win over Windsor at the Maxfield Sports Complex on Thursday night.
The evening began with the unfurling of a banner honoring Hartford assistant coach Bill Vielleux for his draft selection by the Chicago Cubs in 1993. It ended with his junior son, Colin, recording the last of his 11 strikeouts to keep the Hurricanes perfect at 10-0.
Hartford also impressed interim head coach Kris Keelty with what turned into singles night at the ballyard. The Canes slapped 14 hits — all singles — against three Windsor pitchers and batted around in each of the last three innings.
“It’s been great pitching and opportunistic hitting, honestly,” Keelty said. “That’s the best we’ve swung the bats all season tonight. Most of our wins we were having fewer hits than our runs, maybe 10 runs on five hits, that kind of game. Tonight, we pounded the ball.”
Jeff Moreno, Hartford’s athletic director, had been keeping the Vielleux banner in his office for about a year, waiting for a night when the COVID-19 pandemic would finally yield to ceremony. In a short pre-game address, Moreno — a three-sport teammate in their high school days — noted that as the lanky Vielleux’s skills became evident, “every kid in town wanted to play on (his) team because everyone knew nobody could hit him when he pitched and nobody could get one past him when he played shortstop.”
Vielleux joined his family for photographs at the banner on the left-field fence and called the night “emotional.”
“We all saw something rolled up; the kids were asking what it was, and I figured it was the Nighthawks starting to put down their donation banners,” Vielleux said. “It was a nice surprise.”
Vielleux was actually at a friend’s house following a baseball win over Windsor when the Cubs called, having chosen him in the 48th round of the major league draft on June 5, 1993. Vielleux signed almost immediately and played two seasons with the Cubs’ Gulf Coast League affiliate in Florida before deciding baseball as a job wasn’t his cup of tea.
“Right then, it was the best move in my head,” said Veilleux, who got picked in the same draft class that yielded the likes of Alex Rodriguez, Trot Nixon, Chris Carpenter, Torii Hunter and Jason Varitek, among others. “It was a good thing to do, just go play ball and try to have some fun.”
The current Canes had plenty of fun on Thursday night. It just took an inning to get going.
Colin Vielleux, Alex Bushway, Cam Tucker and Drew Martin greeted Windsor starter Cooper Bevis with consecutive singles to open the home second for a 2-0 lead. A sacrifice bunt, three more singles, a walk and a Windsor outfield error upped the cushion to 7-0 by the frame’s end.
Hartford continued the bat barrage with a four-run third and a five-run fourth. When he wasn’t keeping the Yellowjackets (3-7) checked on the mound, Colin Vielleux slapped four singles and drove in two runs to front the Hartford batsmen.
To their credit, the Jacks mounted a third-inning uprising to at least temporarily put to rest concerns of a mercy-rule fate. An Hurricane error brought in Windsor’s first run, while Owen Rhoad and Johnny Clark contributed RBI singles.
The younger Vielleux proved too tough over the long haul, fanning a trio of pinch-hitters in the top of the fifth to end the contest. Danny Bushway had a team-high three RBIs for Hartford.
“If you don’t get ahead of these guys, they’re going to pound the ball,” Windsor coach Jamie Richardson pointed out. “1-0, 2-0 counts, they’re going to make you pay. It showed today. Good-hitting ballclub.”
Sitting pretty atop VPA Division II, Hartford still has six games on its slate, five of them next week, including a rematch with the Jacks in Windsor. Senior Alex Bushway and the younger Vielleux give the Canes “1A and 1B” as far as the rotation is concerned, Keelty said, so next week may mark an opportunity to cultivate depth ahead of the postseason.
That’s the future. On this night, Hartford baseball’s past and present took a bow.
“This game is always tough for our guys, because Windsor plays hard and you hear them,” Keelty said. “They make a lot of noise in the dugout. It’s important to keep your composure in games like that, and Colin did a good job of that tonight.”
Fungoes: A pair of former Hurricanes picked up honors from their respective college baseball conferences this week. Babson senior Jordy Allard earned pitcher of the year recognition from the New England Women’s and Men’s Athletic Conference on Wednesday following a 7-0 season in which the right-hander struck out 55 and walked just two over 49⅔ innings with an 0.91 earned-run average. Allard, who will return to Maxfield in two weeks to rejoin the Upper Valley Nighthawks, was among the top 10 in NCAA Division III for WHIP (0.62), strikeout-to-walk ratio (27.50) and walks per nine innings (0.36). … Meanwhile, former Hartford teammate and Northern Vermont-Lyndon senior Codi Smith was chosen the baseball player of the year by the North Atlantic Conference on Tuesday. An outfielder and pitcher, Smith led the NAC in batting average (.478), on-base percentage (.557), slugging percentage (.955), home runs (seven) and RBIs (30). He went 3-1 in five starts on the mound with one save and led the league with 53 strikeouts. He also made the NAC first team as an outfielder.
Greg Fennell can be reached at gfennell@vnews.com or 603-727-3226.