by Vinny Messana
When James Weisman closed the door in Rocky Point’s epic 7-3 victory in 12 innings over Shoreham-Wading River, it felt more like Rocky Balboa’s epic 15-round fight over Ivan Drago.
“It was not easy–it was a dogfight,” said Rocky Point’s Head Coach Andrew Aschettino. “It was two phenomenal teams playing their brains out,” he added.
The Eagles knew they had a daunting task going against Notre Dame-bound Brian Morrell–our No. 3 ranked prospect on Long Island. They defeated him last week, but Aschettino noted they had a different game plan today.
“Today we changed the approach,” he said. “We knew he would go to the offspeed early. We wanted to drive the pitch count up, last week we tried to jump on him early in the count. We knew he was going on three days rest,” he added.
For the first few innings, it didn’t appear that their approach was working.
Morrell breezed through their lineup with surgical precision. Through four innings, he had struck out six, walked none and thrown only 48 pitches while allowing just two singles.
Shoreham-Wading River had taken a 1-0 lead against sophomore Joe Grillo in the bottom of the fourth on an RBI single by Alex Bettenhauser to drive in Nick Manesis.
Brian Morrell launched his LI-leading 12th HR of the season (Photo Credit: Vinny Messana)
Grillo had been out for the previous three weeks with mono, but Aschettino noted he threw two bullpens prior to today’s start and they felt confident enough to start him. He was on the ropes in the fourth inning, but he did not waiver.
He showed his grit, working out of a 1st & 3rd jam by inducing a ground out to second base.
The Eagles responded against Morrell in a big way. More specifically, Grillo got revenge by blasting a majestic home run over the student section in right field to tie the score at 1-1.
Both pitchers settled down and it was 1-1 heading to extra innings.
The Eagles broke through in the top of the eighth on a bizarre scene. After Morrell hit the leadoff batter, the next batter hit into a forceout. With one out, Morrell struck out Weisman for his ninth strikeout of the day. That brought up their most feared hitter, Kyle Strovink, who had lined two singles off Morrell on the day and also caught him attempting to steal.
On a 3-2 pitch, Morrell snapped a curve that just missed outside to put runners on first and second. The next batter came up and Morrell unleashed a wild pitch, the runner did not get a good jump and would’ve been thrown out but the ball got past the third baseman and went into left field to give the Eagles a 2-1 lead.
Eagles reliever, James Weisman, who started and won on Saturday also pitched a scoreless seventh inning and was looking to record the save. He walked leadoff batter, Vincent Uzzi, to put the tying run on. After a flyout, Jon Luppens lined a single to put the tying run in scoring position. The next batter, Chris Speruzzi, smacked a single to center to tie the ball game at 2-2. Weisman escaped further trouble and the game moved to the ninth.
In the top of the ninth, after a leadoff hit by pitch and a wild pitch, Zach Perri smacked a ground-rule double (that was initially ruled a HR) to put the Eagles up once again.
In the bottom of the ninth, Weisman was back out there. He induced a ground ball to second for the first out, which brought up Morrell.
The junior smacked a long, long, solo shot to left field to tie up the game AGAIN and send the crowd into a frenzy.
The score would remain 3-3 until the 12th inning, when Chris Casswell lined a two-out bases loaded single to give the Eagles a 4-3 lead. The next batter, Joe Grillo, added to his terrific day with a two-run double to give Rocky Point some cushion. A wild pitch brought home their fourth run of the inning.
Weisman went back out for his fifth inning of relief. He slammed the door shut to send Rocky Point into the Class A Finals against Mount Sinai.
The team that has embraced the underdog role this postseason has now knocked off Bayport-Blue Point and Shoreham-Wading River–both higher seeds–and will now take on Mount Sinai (16-7) who has two of the top pitchers in the county.
Now they’ll have to try to continue their magic against Brandon Bonanno and Sam Kessler–who will be headed to Stony Brook and West Virginia in the fall, respectively.
“We’ve been preaching so hard–pass the bat to the next teammate,” said Aschettino.
They will send another sophomore, Dillon Cassidy to the hill tomorrow in Game 1 looking to ride their hot-streak.
