Our @DigmiNation Player of the Game is Sean Coveny of Commack. He smacked a game-tying 2-R shot to right field in Commack’s 4-3 victory over Connetquot pic.twitter.com/kpMCfkF6Vn
— Axcess Baseball LI (@axcessbaseball) April 27, 2018
One crucial moment in this game resulted in Commack completing a comeback from a 3-0 deficit over rival Connetquot in a emotionally-charged game at Baseball Heaven.
In the sixth inning with Connetquot leading 3-1 and sophomore Alex Ungar absolutely dealing, Hofstra-commit James Cardinale stepped to the plate. He launched a well-struck ball to the deepest part of the park in center field. The outfielder, Luke Quinlan, timed it perfectly and leapt for the ball and caught it. It appeared to be a complete catch but the ball came loose from his glove upon impact on the ground. Cardinale continued to run hard, dove head first into third and the umpire ruled that it was not a complete catch. The Connetquot coaching staff–understandably so–was beside themselves that it would be ruled anything but a clean catch.
This changed the complexion of the game.
To the credit of Ungar, he retired the next two batter, but Sean Coveny made it hurt with an opposite field, game-tying two-run HR to right field to even the score at 3-3 and send his team and the parents into a frenzy.
Tremendous job by Krzemienski to get through 7 innings. Tied up 3-3 bottom 7, top of the lineup coming up pic.twitter.com/hHr3ugYbeC
— Axcess Baseball LI (@axcessbaseball) April 27, 2018
Commack’s starter Jake Krzemienski, after allowing three runs in the first three innings, completely settled down and stayed in the game. As the ace of the staff, he did his job and kept the team in the game. He went back out in the seventh inning and worked around a leadoff single and a walk to Alex Ungar to retire the side on a filthy curveball in the dirt.
In the bottom of the seventh inning, Connetquot decided to take out Ungar in favor of another hard-throwing, promising sophomore in Matt Brown-Eiring.
He was greeted rudely by Joe Pellegrino with a double to deep left center field. The following batter, Tim McHugh, was intentionally walked to bring the No. 3 hitter, Krzemienski, to the plate. He ripped a line drive with so much velocity that it was barely visible off the bat. Fortunately, Brown-Eiring was able to protect his face and get leather on the ball, but it wound up resulting in an infield hit and loading the bases with nobody out.
No easy task for anyone. Brown-Eiring, however, showed intestinal fortitude in such a high-leverage situation against the reigning Class AA Suffolk County champs.
He went to work and struck out the cleanup hitter and No. 5 hitter on nasty breaking balls. Now it appeared he had a very good chance of pulling a rabbit out of his hat and escaping unscathed.
Pinch hitter Cole Sass came to the plate. The first pitch was extremely borderline pitch. To the naked eye it appeared to be a strike but it was called a ball. He evened up the count on the next pitch, but missed on the next two to fall behind 3-1. He got the count full on a good heater that Sass swung through to bring everything to the point of no return.
Full count. Bases loaded. Tie game. Brown-Eiring reared back and fired his best fastball. Once again, it appeared to be a strike but the umpire thought otherwise.
Pellegrino scores and Commack wins it.
The first few innings was a different game. Connetquot took an early lead on back-to-back doubles by Stony Brook-commit Derek Yalon and Kindle. The following batter, Chris Amato, hit a sacrifice fly to extend it to 2-0.
In the top of the third, first baseman and Oswego-commit Nick Ungar launched a solo HR to left-center field to give the Thunderbirds a 3-0 cushion.
With these two teams matching up, no lead is ever safe, but Ungar did have that look of a dominant outing. For much of the game he was, his only blemish coming in the bottom of the third on an RBI double by McHugh to score Pellegrino who reached on an error.
The victory puts Commack in the driver’s seat in the League 2. They are now four games ahead of Connetquot, Lindenhurst, Northport and five games ahead of Sachem North.
