By Andy Hutchison

Staples baseball has had a flair for the dramatic from the start this spring. The Wreckers followed up a comeback 5-3 extra-inning win at Cheshire in Saturday’s season opener with another late-game rally to walk off 8-7 over visiting Greenwich on Tuesday.

The Wreckers trailed heading into their final at bat in both contests before snatching victory from the jaws of defeat.

Greenwich jumped out to a 5-0 lead in the opening inning before Staples chipped away for a 6-5 lead. The Cardinals went ahead 7-6 with a pair of runs in the top of the seventh, but Staples struck twice in its half of the final inning to prevail.

Connor Brill worked a bases-loaded walk to tie things and Jack Jacob put the ball in play toward third base and drove in the decisive run on a fielder’s choice when Logan Orr beat the throw home.

Vince Vega homered, doubled and drove in three runs to power the offense. Staples mustered only five hits — but they were timely — and drew seven walks.

Bruce Schlegelmilch doubled and scored and Mark Kelly and Nolan Waters each knocked in a run.

Charlie Fitch pitched five solid innings, allowing one earned run on three hits and struck out four.

Staples was down to its final three outs in its first game of the slate as well, trailing 3-2 to Cheshire in the seventh before forcing extra innings and winning in the eighth.

The Wreckers fell behind 2-0 but evened the score in the sixth on a two-run homer by Schlegelmilch.

After the Rams reclaimed the lead in the bottom of the sixth, Staples again pulled even when Jules Cicero hit a sacrifice fly in the seventh. A hit batter and double by Jacob set the table for the equalizing run.

In the eighth, Kelly had a go-ahead RBI single and Chase Landgraf added an insurance run on a sac fly.

Staples pitchers allowed only one earned run against Cheshire. Schlegelmilch tossed four innings of one-hit ball, striking out four. Brill, Fitch and Lukas Snow combined on four strong innings of work with six combined strikeouts.

The Wreckers visit Glastonbury Friday at 4 p.m. 

Andy Hutchison

^{_{Andy Hutchison has been covering school sports — including Staples athletics — as well as news and feature stories, since the 1990s. He is the sports editor at the Newtown Bee. He writes for the Monroe Sun. He was director of communications and radio color commentator for the Bridgeport Sound Tigers (now Islanders) hockey team. He has won numerous writing awards, including regional and national first-place honors.}}