By Andy Hutchison

WESTPORT — Staples High’s baseball team kept up its winning ways to begin the season in dramatic fashion, pulling off a 3-2 extra-inning thriller against Glastonbury in the home opener Saturday. 

The Wreckers improved to 3-1.

Seven innings were not enough to seal the victory, but a big home crowd stuck around for an exciting finish. 

Vincent Vega led off the bottom of the ninth inning with a double and pinch runner Noah Saed scored the decisive run from third base on Jules Cicero’s one-out, pop-fly single that fell between the outfielders in left center. 

“A lot of emotion — pretty hard-fought win. We battled,” Cicero said.

Sophomore Bruce Schlegelmilch started on the mound for the Wreckers and did well, going three and two-thirds innings, allowing two runs, only one earned, on two hits with a walk and four strikeouts.

Ben Cukier was solid in relief, tossing five and a third frames for the win. He surrendered five hits and did not allow a run, working around leadoff hits and jams. Cukier also walked one and fanned four batters.

“Really gritty win,” said Cukier, commending teammates for making plays in the field and coming through with some clutch hits against a strong opponent.

Cukier mixed his fastball and slider with changeups to keep Glastonbury’s hitters guessing.

Staples Coach Jack McFarland said the plan all along was for Schlegelmilch, on a pitch count in his first start, to be relieved by starter B — Cukier — for the final few innings. Cukier’s appearance got extended a couple innings because of extras, which turned out to be no problem.

“Ben was a warrior today and Bruce did a nice job for us in his first start,” McFarland said.

The game was not without its flaws for the winning side. Staples committed five errors and allowed a run to score when nobody covered home plate. Additionally, a base runner was picked off second to thwart a possible scoring rally.

“It was good for us to get into a game like this early in the year,” said McFarland, noting that the team has some time to learn and clean up mistakes, and that the challenge came against a non-conference foe.

Staples took leads of 1-0 in the first and 2-1 in the third. The game was tied 2-2 from the top of the fourth until the ninth-inning heroics. 

Andrew Oppenheimer had a hit and scored on a Jake Goldshore double, while Cicero had two hits, an RBI and run scored.

The Wreckers were coming off an 8-1 win over New Canaan on Thursday. 

In that victory, Kai Nee pitched five innings and struck out nine. Goldshore had a double among his three hits and drove in two runs. Mark Kelly and Cole Landgraf both knocked in two runs, Cooper Brundige tripled and drove in a run, and Cicero delivered a pair of hits.

The Wreckers host Brien McMahon of Norwalk at 4:30 p.m. Monday. (Game schedules are subject to change; click for the latest CIAC updates.)  

Andy Hutchison has been covering school sports — including Staples athletics — as well as news and feature stories in Fairfield County, since the 1990s. Learn more about us here.