Lyman Hall Baseball Team Receives Prestigious Honors From Diamond Club

WALLINGFORD, CT — Lyman Hall baseball coach Billy Rich has been named the Southern Connecticut Diamond Club’s Coach of the Year and the Trojans have been awarded its Team of the Year, the organization announced this week.

The Southern Connecticut Diamond Club, Inc., announced in a news release that it has expanded its Coach of the Year and Team of the Year program for its annual “No ‘I’ in Team” high school awards luncheon.

The honors have been named for four SCDC Hall of Fame members and former Executive Board members.

Read more from the news release below:

The club has also announced this year’s winners, as chosen by area coaches and the SCDC Executive Board.

The 2025 Samuel A. Burrell Jr. Coach of the Year is Billy Rich of Lyman Hall High School, and the inaugural Tom Fahy Coach of the Year is Billy Mitchell of North Branford High School.

Lyman Hall has been awarded the Burt Leventhal Team of the Year, while Wilcox Technical High School is the 2025 SCDC Vin Virgulto Team of the Year. Rich, Mitchell, Lyman Hall and Wilcox Tech will be recognized alongside the John “Whitey” Piurek “No ‘I’ in Team” Award winners on Sunday, June 8.

The SCDC Coach of the Year Award has been named for Burrell since 2007. A co-founder of the original Greater New Haven Diamond Club who coached New Haven American Legion Post 47 and Hillhouse High School, Burrell was an SCDC board member until his death in 2022. The organization has added a second honor for 2025 designated in honor of Fahy, a Quinnipiac University Hall-of-Famer who followed a successful 17-year tenure as Derby High School’s coach by assisting at West Haven High School, Hopkins School, and Yale University.

The SCDC has also added a second Team of the Year and has memorialized the awards for recently-deceased high-school coaches and board members Leventhal and Virgulto. Leventhal won 380 games and three state championships in 27 years as the head coach of Cheshire High School, where the baseball field is named in his honor. Virgulto coached baseball at Milford Academy and then for 23 years at Hamden High School.

After claiming the Southern Connecticut Conference Quinnipiac Division regular-season crown, Rich and Lyman Hall (19-3) captured their first SCC Tournament championship. The Trojans are ranked No. 7 in the state and are the No. 3 seed in the CIAC Class L Tournament.

Mitchell guided North Branford (19-4) to its second consecutive Shoreline Conference regular-season and tournament titles. The Thunderbirds are seeded second for the Class S playoffs. Wilcox Tech is 17-6 and won the Connecticut Technical Conference Tournament for the second year in a row.

The 20th SCDC “No ‘I’ in Team” Awards Banquet will be held at The Woodwinds in Branford on June 8. Doors open at 10:30 a.m. with the speaking program and buffet brunch to begin at 11 a.m. Tickets are $50 per person and will only be sold in advance.

Tickets can be purchased online here or by contacting Rose V. Mentone, Executive Director, at RMentone@comcast.net.

The Southern Connecticut Diamond Club is a non-profit, volunteer-run organization whose stated mission is to foster and promote the game of baseball in greater New Haven. The SCDC redirects all net proceeds back to the local baseball community. To make a donation, visit the link above or donate via Venmo @SCDC-1.