Thomas Brady (Shoreham-Wading River 2017) of the LI Road Warriors spoke with Justin Paura following the 8-5 victory over Riverhead pic.twitter.com/XLXpeYGb41
— Axcess Baseball LI (@axcessbaseball) June 27, 2018
We are slowly approaching the midway point of the Hamptons Collegiate Baseball League season. The real competitors start to emerge entering July, making every game more and more important. The Riverhead Tomcats came into Wednesday’s matchup with the Long Island Road Warriors only one point ahead of North Fork for third place. On the other side, LI needed a win to stay atop of the league after Westhampton defeated Shelter Island. Something had to give and each team showed out at St. John’s the Baptist Field. In the end, the Road Warriors (14-5) proved that they’re the HCBL’s best and came out with an 8-5 victory over the Tomcats (9-7-3).
The game was expected to be a slugfest days before the two teams even stepped on the field. Long Island’s typical home field is at St. Joseph’s Athletic Complex, however due to scheduling conflicts the contest was moved to St. John’s the Baptist, where the left field fence is a mere 300 feet away from home plate (56 feet closer than at St. Joseph’s). The expectations proved just in the top of the first inning when Eduardo Malinowski hit a fly ball with just enough carry to find the seats, giving Riverhead a quick 2-0 lead.
It was a short-lived advantage for the Tomcats and unfortunately for John Galanoudis and company, it was the only advantage they’d have all afternoon. After a leadoff single from Patrick Lagravinese in the bottom of the frame, Marcos Perivolaris smoked a ball over the left-center field wall to knot the game up at 2.
The runs kept pouring in from there for Long Island. Cameron Tomaiko and Eric Roubal singled to start off the bottom of the second to set up Thomas Brady, who would knock in Roubal with a single right up the middle. Starting pitcher Chris Stefl started to lose his command when he issued a four-pitch walk to Joe Rosselli. The lefty proceeded to walk Lagravinese to surrender in one run, then hit Perivolaris with a pitch to give up another. Ben McNeill followed by hitting into a fielder’s choice, but the play was made at second allowing Rosselli to score from third and give the Road Warriors a 6-2 lead.
Riverhead did its best job to respond in the third. They stuck to the long ball as Louis Antos powered a Chris Mott fastball to left for the game’s third home run to cut their deficit in half.
6-4 was the score entering the bottom of the third, but Brady was not letting this one get within Riverhead’s reach. He smacked an RBI double to bring home Roubal after he doubled in the at-bat prior. It was almost like déjà vu the very next inning went Brady went opposite field again for his third RBI of the afternoon. Long Island did all its scoring in the first four innings of the game.
With an 8-4 cushion, Neal Heaton let his bullpen take over in the sixth. Matt Bohenek struggled as the first relief pitcher by only managing to get one out while yielding a run by walking Luke Oliphant with the bases loaded. However, Tim Kranz came in to clean up the mess and got LI out of the inning. Kranz pitched into the seventh before Tristan Amone took over. The Fairfield lefty could not get an out before Heaton differed to Matt Paghidas to close the door on the Tomcats. He wrapped up the seventh and retired Riverhead in four batters in the eighth. Due to darkness, the game concluded after eight innings and the Road Warriors emerge victorious with the 8-5 win.
Long Island now gets to rest up for a couple of days before its big weekend. The Road Warriors see Riverhead again on Saturday in a doubleheader at Veterans Memorial Park, not to be out-done by a two-game date with second-place Westhampton on Sunday. As for the Tomcats, they get back on the horse tomorrow to face North Fork who is eyeing to pass them for third place.
Our @DigmiNation Player of the Game is Thomas Brady, who finished the afternoon going 3/3 with 3 RBIs, a double and a walk. He now places second on the Road Warriors with 14 RBIs this season.
