{"id":68427,"date":"2026-04-25T14:26:14","date_gmt":"2026-04-25T14:26:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/68427\/"},"modified":"2026-04-25T14:26:14","modified_gmt":"2026-04-25T14:26:14","slug":"southington-starts-a-freshman-pitcher-beats-berlin-at-dunkin-park","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/68427\/","title":{"rendered":"Southington starts a freshman pitcher, beats Berlin at Dunkin’ Park"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bryce Zielinski is a freshman pitcher for the Southington<\/a> High baseball team.<\/p>\n

Friday night, he got his first start. But it wasn\u2019t at home or another regular high school field. Southington was playing at Dunkin\u2019 Park<\/a> against Berlin.<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cI tried to calm my nerves, but it was kind of hard to,\u201d Zielinski said. \u201cI definitely felt so much pressure. But after I got through the first inning; I got out of it with only one run so I felt pretty confident after that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Zielinski pitched three innings for Southington, which beat Berlin 5-2 in a CCC South game. The Knights are 7-1 this season, with their only loss coming to last year\u2019s Class LL champion South Windsor.<\/a> Berlin is 4-4 but one of its wins came against South Windsor.<\/p>\n

Mason LeFort had two hits and two RBI and scored a run for Southington.<\/p>\n

\"LukeLuke Prozzo pitches Friday night for Southington in a 5-2 win over Berlin at Dunkin Park in Hartford. (Photo by Lori Riley)<\/p>\n

The Knights graduated 11 seniors, with seven going on to play in college. They are younger than most Southington teams, with only six seniors.<\/p>\n

But they have 13 pitchers, including aces Rocco Davino, one of the seniors who has committed to play at Southern Connecticut next year, and junior Luke Prozzo, who pitched the final three innings Friday night.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have a lot of pitchers,\u201d Southington coach Stan Switala said. \u201cComing into this year, we knew we were going to be able to pitch \u2013 I have guys sitting here, ready to throw (Saturday). Prozzo was supposed to pitch against Rocky Hill (Saturday) and I switched it \u2013 I said we got to get this game in and we\u2019ll worry about tomorrow tomorrow so he came in, not even knowing he was going to throw today and threw the last three innings.\u201d<\/p>\n

Prozzo had never pitched at Dunkin\u2019 Park either. He came in in the fifth inning, after Cole Kosko pitched the fourth, and struck out the first batter. He gave up two walks and Berlin\u2019s second run in the fifth before he settled down in the last two innings.<\/p>\n

\"TylerTyler Barnett tries to score for Berlin but got tagged out by Southington catcher Max Pierce in Southington’s 5-2 win over Berlin Friday night at Dunkin Park in Hartford. (Photo by Lori Riley)<\/p>\n

\u201cBright lights, yeah,\u201d said Prozzo, who is also the quarterback on the Southington football team. \u201cAt first I was a little nervous but once I settled in, I got back my confidence.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wasn\u2019t even supposed to pitch tonight \u2013 I was starting (Saturday), (Switala) said, \u2018Luke, I\u2019m going to have you go to the bullpen and warm up,\u2019 and I said, \u00a0\u2018Yeah, perfect.\u2019 I was excited.\u201d<\/p>\n

Southington jumped on Berlin pitcher Matteo Modifica, who is committed to the University of Rhode Island, and scored two runs in the first inning when Connor Lentini doubled and scored on a bases-loaded walk and Max Pierce drove home LeFort with a single.<\/p>\n

\"JakubJakub Cieslik celebrates after scoring a run for Southington Friday night at Dunkin’ Park. in Hartford. Southington beat Berlin 5-2. (Photo by Lori Riley)<\/p>\n

Ryan Lavender drove in a run for Berlin in the first off Zielinski, who settled down and did not give up another hit or run in his next two innings.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe pitched really good tonight,\u201d Switala said. \u201cHe was composed. He faced some good hitters.\u201d<\/p>\n

Southington added another run in the fourth when Jakub Cieslik doubled and scored on a LeFort single and got two more runs in the sixth.<\/p>\n

\u201cI did pretty good but I have to limit my walks,\u201d Zielinski said. \u201cI walked a lot of batters. Other than that, it was pretty good.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the staff is really strong \u2013 we have Luke and Rocco and all those guys \u2013 they\u2019re really good and I have so much faith in them.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bryce Zielinski is a freshman pitcher for the Southington High baseball team. Friday night, he got his first…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":68428,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[99],"tags":[28854,112,13523,13522,37456,190,13711,16894,2578,8880],"class_list":{"0":"post-68427","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-berlin","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-berlin","10":"tag-connecticut-news","11":"tag-ct-news","12":"tag-dunkin-donuts-park","13":"tag-germany","14":"tag-hartford-courant","15":"tag-high-school-sports","16":"tag-local-news","17":"tag-local-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@dk\/116465813929630297","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68427","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=68427"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68427\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/68428"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68427"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68427"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68427"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}