The quality of baseball in the FCIAC is generally strong every year.
The conference was exceptionally strong in the 2026 season with plenty of success in the postseason and a couple of championships won – one each by Trumbull and Staples.
Trumbull defeated defending champion Fairfield Ludlowe, 8-6, in a very good championship game of the 2026 FCIAC Baseball Tournament.
Trumbull’s Eagles then advanced to the Class LL state tournament final, which was won by Staples, 3-2 in eight innings, in yet another very good game.
Those championships won by Trumbull and Staples and a bunch of combined wins by several teams in state tournaments highlighted the excellent 2026 baseball season for the FCIAC.
Staples and Trumbull were ranked No. 2 and No. 3, respectively, while Fairfield teams Warde and Ludlowe were No. 7 and No. 8, respectively, in the Final 2026 GametimeCT Top 10 Baseball Poll.
Individually, there were superb seasons produced by Staples senior second baseman Jules Cicero, named the Player of the Year in the FCIAC, Fairfield Warde’s senior shortstop Carson Dodder, and Danbury’s junior pitcher/infielder Dustin Pitti.
Cicero, Dodder and Pitti were selected for the three highest postseason honors possible. They were selected to the 2026 All-FCIAC Baseball First Team, the Connecticut High School Coaches Association Baseball Class LL All-State Team, and the GametimeCT All-State Baseball First Team.
There were six FCIAC teams who advanced to the quarterfinals of 2026 CIAC LL Baseball Tournament and Staples won its third Class LL state championship in the last nine seasons with 3-2 victory over Trumbull on June 13 at Palmer Field in Middletown.
Sixteen days earlier in the FCIAC championship game on May 28 at Cubeta Stadium in Stamford, Trumbull vaulted out to 5-0 lead and then faced a 6-5 deficit before Alexander Roth singled in two runs with a two-outs in the bottom of the sixth inning in Trumbull’s 8-6 victory over Fairfield Ludlowe.
It was the second conference crown in the last three years for coach Phil Pacelli’s Eagles.
Trumbull and Staples both finished with 12-3 conference records in the regular season. Staples earned No. 2 seed behind top-seeded Fairfield Warde (13-2) in the FCIAC tournament via the tiebreaker of its 11-1 win in the regular season over Trumbull, which was seeded No. 3.
The conference was so balanced and deep with very good teams this year and that led to a great FCIAC tournament with several thrilling close games.
Trumbull nipped sixth-seeded Norwalk, 7-6, in the quarterfinals of the FCIAC tourney and the Eagles advanced to the championship game with their 7-0 semifinal victory over No. 7 New Canaan.
Fairfield Ludlowe, which was seeded No. 4 with its 10-5 record in the regular season, won its first two FCIAC tournament games in extra innings. Coach Ken Geriak’s Falcons began the defense of their conference crown with a 5-4 quarterfinal victory in eight innings over No. 5 seed St. Joseph.
Then in the semifinals, Ludlowe’s Falcons scored the game-winning run in the bottom of the ninth inning of their 4-3 victory over eighth-seeded Darien, which had an 8-7 FCIAC record in the regular season.
St. Joseph, Norwalk, and New Canaan were seeded 5-through-7 respectively after they all finished the regular season with 9-6 FCIAC records.
The results of the other two quarterfinal games, involving the two highest- and two lowest-seeded teams, were a valid indicator of just how deep and balanced the conference was.
The eighth-seeded Darien Blue Wave upset No. 1 Fairfield Warde, 4-2. For New Canaan’s No. 7 Rams, Adrian Delicata and Grant Hickey both had two hits, including a home run, and three RBIs to lead them to a 16-5 victory over No. 2 Staples.
Coach Jack McFarland’s Staples Wreckers rebounded from that loss by winning their final five games of the season and a state championship.
Staples, Trumbull, and Fairfield Ludlowe were among the four semifinal teams in the CIAC Class LL Baseball Tournament after those three and fellow conference teams Danbury, Fairfield Warde and Norwalk made the quarterfinals.
The results of the second round of that CIAC Class LL tourney gave another example of this year’s quality of the FCIAC. There were four games in which conference teams won on the road against non-conference opponents who were seeded significantly higher than them.
Among those games played in the second round: No. 24 seed Danbury won at No. 8 seed Naugatuck, 12-4; No. 14 seed Norwalk won at No. 3 seed Glastonbury, 3-1; No. 11 seed Staples won at sixth-seeded Hall, 6-2; and No. 10 seed Fairfield Ludlowe defeated No. 7 Norwich Free Academy, 7-3.
In the CIAC Class LL quarterfinals: Fairfield Ludlowe scored the only run of the game against host Southington in the eighth inning, Trumbull won at Fairfield Warde, 4-1, and Staples won at home over Norwalk, 13-3.
In the semifinal doubleheader on June 9 at Municipal Stadium in Waterbury, Staples defeated Fairfield Ludlowe in the opener, 8-3, and Trumbull eliminated top-seeded Fairfield Prep, 9-4.
Four days later in the Class LL state championship game, Staples junior Cole Landgraf drove in the game-winning run when he dove headfirst into first base to beat out an infield single with the bases loaded and two outs in the top of the eighth inning of Staples’ 3-2 victory.
Staples took a 2-1 lead in the top of the fourth inning. The Wreckers maintained that lead until they were two outs away from victory after they got the first out in the bottom of the seventh inning.
But then it was Trumbull’s Brayden Jogo who delivered the clutch, game-tying solo home run to send the game into extra innings shortly before Landgraf utilized his speed and headfirst slide to single in that game-winning run.
Staples finished with a 19-7 overall record while Trumbull’s Eagles ended 23-5 after going a combined 7-1 in the FCIAC and state tournaments.
There were a dozen FCIAC teams among the 32 total teams in the Class LL state baseball tournament and the conference finished with a .645 winning percentage with its combined 20-11 record.
A team from the FCIAC has won the Class LL state championship six times in the last nine seasons. Coach McFarland’s Staples Wreckers won it in 2017 and 2019 prior to this year, Norwalk’s 24th-seeded Bears won the 2021 championship, and Fairfield Warde won back-to-back titles in the following two years.
The FCIAC had a combined 24-13 record and a .649 winning percentage from 14 teams in three state tournaments as St. Joseph finished 3-1 after advancing to the Class M semifinals and Wilton went 1-1 in the Class L tournament.
Class L state champion Lyman Hall, Staples and Trumbull were ranked 1-through-3, respectively, in the Final 2026 GametimeCT Top 10 Baseball Poll.
Lyman Hall (27-1) received 11 first-place votes from the dozen voting members of the media and the 19-7 Staples Wreckers got the other first-place vote as they ascended 13 spots from having received the 15th most polling points in the state poll released just before the state tournaments.
Trumbull (23-5) maintained its same ranking of No. 3 from that previous poll and was followed by Fairfield Prep (25-2), Class S state champion St. Paul (26-2) with the No. 5 ranking, and Class M state champion New Fairfield (25-3).
Seventh-ranked Fairfield Warde (19-5) and No. 8 Fairfield Ludlowe (19-8) were the other two of those four FCIAC teams ranked among the top eight, and they were followed by Southington (22-4) and Bethel (23-4).
New Canaan (16-8) received the 15th most polling points as the only conference team in the Others Receiving Votes category.
In addition to Cicero, Dodder and Pitti; Fairfield Warde seniors Nick Crosley and Eliot Kwan, seniors Ryan Leonzi of Trumbull and New Canaan’s Tristan MacAllister, and St. Joseph’s junior Harry Jones joined them on the All-FCIAC First Team and as recipients of all-state honors.
Crosley and Kwan were also selected to the CHSCA Class LL All-State Team and GametimeCT All-State Second Team.
MacAllister made the CHSCA Class LL All-State Team and was GametimeCT All-State Honorable Mention. Leonzi was also among the seven conference players on the 20-player CHSCA Class LL All-State Team, while Jones was on the CHSCA Class M All-State Team and GametimeCT Honorable Mention.
Cicero, Dodder, Pitti, Crosley, Kwan, Leonzi, MacAllister and Jones were eight of the 19 players on the 2026 All-FCIAC Baseball First Team.
Ryan Mitchell of Norwalk was selected the Coach of the Year in the FCIAC.
There were a combined 38 more players chosen for both the FCIAC All East Team and FCIAC All West Team, 19 apiece on each of those teams.
All 16 conference teams had at least two players who were All-FCIAC Honorable Mention.
The list of all the players who received all-conference honors in any of the four categories is on the link below: