Junior Legion Squad Headed To State Tournament

At 21 years old, Tom Harkins, the first-year coach of the Darien/New Canaan Junior American Legion baseball team, is barely older than his players.

But that did not stop the Gettysburg College senior-to-be from guiding his club to the Junior Legion state tournament with a 15-12 record and a fourth-place finish in Zone Four.

According to Harkins, a 2007 graduate of New Canaan High School who played one year of baseball at Gettysburg College, his youth never was an issue.

After playing Legion ball for five years, he got his feet wet when he was asked to help out the junior squad last year after then-coach Mike Petrona took time out to get married.

Petrona moved up to the senior team this year and Harkins took over the junior squad.

"There was never any concern [with my age]," he said. "They kids have been great with it."

Darien/New Canaan clinched a state tournament berth with a doubleheader sweep of Wilton on Saturday, then dropped its regular-season finale to Fairfield, 6-5, on Sunday. That loss snapped a four-game winning streak.

The team will open state tourney play on Saturday but won't know its first-round opponent until Thursday when the pairings are announced.

Since the club will have one of the lowest seeds—15 wins is the minumum number of victories needed to qualify in zone four—Harkins anticipates that his team will be shipped to the eastern part of the state. The teams are seeded in an NCAA-style bracket with the higher seeds hosting the games.

Still, with a deep and experienced roster, Harkins thinks his team has a chance to do some damage. 

"One of the real strengths of this team is a lot of the guys have played together so long that they get along really well," Harkins said. "It's a really close team, and I think the closer a team is, the better it will be, and I that could carry us really far."

Thomas Carruthers, who bats in the No. 3 hole, is the team's top hitter and run producer. A versatile player, Carruthers plays three positions: catcher, shortstop and pitcher.

Center fielder Bryan Previte, who played football for Darien High School last season, is the team's top RBI man in the No. 5 spot in the lineup but, according to Harkins, has hit in hard luck for most of the year.

"He's hit some of the hardest balls I've seen, but right at people," Harkins said.

New Canaan's Go Go Jones, who plays in the outfield and both corner infield positions, bats in the cleanup spot but is not the typical No. 4 hitter in that he can bunt. In a game against Fairfield earlier this year, Darien/New Canaan won a squeeze bunt from Jones.

"The (Fairfield) coaches after the game were shocked that we called a squeeze with the cleanup hitter," Harkins said. "He got it down."

On the mound, Chris Smith, whom Harkins describes as a big kid who throws a lot of strikes, anchors the staff, along with Ricky Miller and Carruthers.

Still, while last year's Darien/New Canaan team was predicated on strong defense and pitching, the strength of this year's club is its offense.

"This team is so deep, especially offensively," Harkins said. "It's the deepest team I've ever been a part of, both coaching and playing-wise."

Darien/New Canaan averaged 5.7 runs, the fourth-best total in the 10-team league. By comparison, the team allowed the seventh-most runs.