The reign is over. After watching their Nassau County rivals, Farmingdale State own the conference for the previous seven seasons, Old Westbury has finally dethroned them.
“AMAZING!!” said winning pitcher, and tournament MVP Tyler Kapela in regards to how it feels to be champs. “So happy we finally pulled it off for our coaches and seniors,” he added.
It took getting to the elimination game, but the Panthers clobbered the Rams 11-4 behind Kapela’s complete game victory. He was far from perfect, he allowed four runs on 12 hits with two strikeouts but he got the big outs when he needed to and ended the drought.
The Panthers were all over the Rams’ pitching–they smacked 17 hits and were up 4-0 in the top of the first after RBI singles by Christian Faust, Jonathan Pagan and Brandon Stein.
In the bottom of the first, the Rams did respond with two runs on an RBI double by Nick Osburn and a run-scoring double play off the bat of Ryan Jordan.
With the game close at 6-4 in the sixth inning, Faust provided an insurance run with a sac fly to score Mike Cardino.
They broke it open in the seventh with a five-spot. Joey Walsh smacked an RBI triple into the left center alley to score Tommy Zeigen.
Jacob Coners hit an RBI single to score Joey Walsh and increase the lead to 8-4. That set the stage for Nick Yip, who hit his sixth home run of the season, and it was a huge three-run bomb to left field to open the game up at 11-4.
Every Panthers starter except for Dean Sheridan had two hits, and he had one.
Kapela’s win was his second of the season. Matt Fick was tagged with the loss for the Rams, it was his first of the season.
This is the first time since 2007 that a team other than Farmingdale State will represent the Skyline Conference in the regionals. The Panthers will play a few tuneup games as they wait and hear which seed they will be. They are now 25-9 on the season.
