By Chris Amato
Each year Sachem East and Sachem North come together in regular season game that means much more then any other regular season game on their schedules. The two teams meet up at a neutral site in order to hold a tournament in honor of the 1993 Sachem graduate, Tim Crowley. Crowley was a very well respected student-athlete in the Sachem baseball program and was seen as a role model throughout the Sachem community. Crowley had passed away in a car accident while attending college at Oglethrope University. A baseball tournament in his name is a very fitting way in order to extend the memory of Tim Crowley.
‘Bats 4 Buddies’ will be accepting baseball equipment on June 5 at the ‘Battle of the Border’ for under privileged kids in third-world countries.
Both teams had this date marked on their calendars and knew that this game was very important and may even come with some bragging rights. Although both teams were more than prepared, Sachem East will be the team with the trophy, as they came away with the 12-3 victory. Sachem East’s offense has been cold in recent games but came out firing on all cylinders Friday night.
Photo Credit: Chris Amato
Starting pitcher Louis LoPiccolo was terrific as well–firing a complete game.
Sachem North sent Troy Kohn to the mound to start the game looking to keep the Sachem East batters quite. However, the Sachem East offense would open the game with a bang when junior, Anthony Siroka hit a monstrous two-run homer over the right field fence that would give his team an early lead.
Then again in the third inning, Sachem East would send another ball over the fence. This time the hit would come from a Ryan Brendan solo shot that padded the lead 3-1. The third inning was the last for North pitcher Troy Kohn. Kohn finished with a total of three earned runs on five hits while striking out one.
Sachem North fired right back in the bottom of the inning after finally getting to LoPiccolo. North scored two runs in the inning by playing a little bit of small ball. After Norths offense was able to string a few hit together, it would be Christian Jimenez to do the damage with two-run single that cut the deficit back down to 1 run. LoPiccolo then kept Sachem North scoreless until the bottom of the 7th.
Louis LoPiccolo will be going to Farmingdale State in the fall (Credit: Chris Amato)
Sachem East came right back and scored what would be the game-winning runs in the top of the 4th. The runs came off of a 2 run base hit by Anthony Scheller that drove in Dan Palermo and Dylan Stalzer.
Later on in the 5th when East scored their 6th and 7th runs of the game that came off singles from Kyle Menendez and Dylan Stalzer.
The Sachem East offense continued to score runs into the 6th when they added another 3 onto an already sufficient lead. The runs came from RBI base hits from Dan Palermo and Menendez, who ended the day with three RBI’s.
The East offense was not quite finished yet as they tacked on another two more runs in their final at bat to boost the lead to 10 runs.
Sachem North came to bat with some fight in them connecting for 4 hits in the final inning that scored 1 run. Chris Lollo drove in the game’s final run with an RBI single. LoPiccolo then went on to close the door, sealing the W for Sachem East. LoPiccolo finished with three Earned runs on 10 hits and striking out seven.
Sachem East went into the game knowing what was at stake but while also knowing the cause for the game. Sachem East head coach, Kevin Schnupp said “We all grew up playing with Crowley and when we come together we have a lot of respect for the Sachem North, they are a great program. So we come and just want to honor his name.”
The game awarded scholarships in the amount of $1,000 to a player from each team. Alex DeLuca (Sachem North) and Anthony Scheller (Sachem East) were the recipients. Coincidentally, both of these young men will be attending the College of the St. Rose in the fall.
Boths teams are looking to finish to regular season strong as they each have one more series left that will take place next week.
