https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m5yVp_42nMk
Aviator Field was scheduled to host a double header on Monday afternoon. The rain had other plans. Instead, the two games between the Westhampton Aviators and the Riverhead Tomcats were set to take place on Tuesday afternoon, one of two on the day. The other was the North Fork Ospreys and the Sag Harbor Whalers, two sets of games proving to be vital to determining the playoff picture.
@jonahkarp82 interviews the @HamptonsLeague @RHTomcats star Jackson Olson after a double-header sweep in Westhampton pic.twitter.com/68j2xQsQ0R
— aXcess Baseball (@axcessbaseball) July 26, 2017
Entering the first game in Westhampton Beach, the narrative was simple for the Tomcats: win one game and you’re in. With the Aviators and the Long Island Road Warriors having locked up the one and two seeds, respectively, the question was: who would be the three and four seeds?
Riverhead and North Fork were tied with 40 points in the standings entering the first game of each of the double-headers. The Ospreys held the series head-to-head advantage over the Tomcats four games to three, barring a tiebreaker-necessary scenario. The Shelter Island Bucks had 37 points and were playing the Long Island Road Warriors. Conceivably, they could squeak in to the playoffs if two things were to happen: a win against Long Island AND North Fork OR Riverhead gets swept.
Win one game and you’re in. That’s all it took for the Tomcats to clinch. The Aviators, having locked up the number one seed, weren’t technically playing for anything that would impact the standings. Westhampton had 27 wins on the season, tied for the most in HCBL history. One more win for Dan Luisi’s squad would cement them in the record books. But without question, this game meant more to the Tomcats.
The first game started about 20 minutes after the scheduled 2:15 first pitch, due to the field not being quite playable. Early on, it seemed like anything the Tomcats would do, the Aviators would mirror. Riverhead plated a base runner in the top of the first, so Westhampton tied it up at one in the home first. The Tomcats went down in order in the second, so the Aviators did the same. Jackson Olson unloaded a two-run homer to put the Tomcats up 3-1 in the third, but Nick Bottari did the same in the bottom of the frame to even the score 3-3.
In the fourth, the chess match ended. Brian Cox hit a sacrifice fly to score Preston Pilat that game the Tomcats the lead 4-3. But in the fifth, the Riverhead bats came alive. Six players came home to score on five hits, two hit batsmen, a walk and an error on the second baseman, Eric Callahan. 12 players stepped up to the plate in the top of the fifth and between Dean McCarthy and Zack Hersh, the Tomcats exploded to crack open a 10-4 lead.
The Tomcats would tack on three more runs in the seventh, after a solo shot by Freddy Sabido and another two-run home run by Olson to extend the lead to 13-4, before Alvin Melendez would close it out in the bottom of the inning.
After North Fork had defeated Sag Harbor in the first game of its double-header 3-2, the Tomcats victory knocked the Bucks out. Now if Riverhead wins and North Fork loses, the Tomcats are the three seed. An Ospreys’ victory, however, would ensure their positioning above the Tomcats.
The second game at Aviator Field was slow out of the gate. The first two and a half innings took an hour, but the Tomcats had the lead 4-1. It was after that, that things got interesting. Word came in that the Ospreys had won 8-4 in the second game of their double-header to clinch the number three seed.
That new information influenced Skipper Mike Amendola to make some adjustments to the batting order. Jake Erhard, Kyle Martin, Nick Morena, Joseph Murphy, Darren Williams and Michael Tarpey (all pitchers) took turns at the plate.
The Tomcats ended up winning the game 6-4 in six innings, due to darkness on the field.
Olson, who reached base a total of eight times on Tuesday, noted that the secret to beating the Aviators is to “keep the same energy. We are playing really well when we have good energy.”
The Tomcats and the Aviators square off again on Thursday in the postseason semifinal round.
