And Renegades are your East Coast Labor Day Champions! pic.twitter.com/4vzDfFZQF9
— Axcess Baseball LI (@axcessbaseball) September 3, 2018
The East Coast Labor Day Bash tournament 14u division featured some of Long Islands well-renowned travel organizations including the Hitters Club Hawkeyes, Long Island Royals and the Long Island Black Diamonds. However, it was the Howard Beach Wolfpack and the Whitestone Renegades who were the final the teams remaining and were ready to square off to bring home the trophy and possibly some bragging rights for the best team in Queens.
On a blazing hot afternoon, reaching the upper 80’s at Eisenhower Park both teams took the field stocked with their best 9.
Out of the gate, the Wolfpack sent John Dezago to the mound. Dezago breezed through the first inning, sitting down the first three hitters on the game. However, in the 2nd inning when Martinez reached on a walk and was scored on a screaming RBI double by Nicholas Quinlan.
For the Renegades, it would be Blake Jefremow to get the start. After a long, tiring tournament all weekend the Renegades needed a quality outing from their starting pitcher and that is exactly what Jefremow gave them. He displayed good velocity coupled with command of his curveball which seemed to freeze the Wolfpack at the plate. Jefremow would not allow a run in the 6 innings that he pitched while also finishing with 6 strikeouts, no walks and only giving up one hit.
Howard Beach was kept quiet the entire game until the bottom of the 7th. With their backs against the wall, the team needed a spark and that was exactly what they got when their lead off batter that inning, Joe Liotta, reached base on a walk. Liotta was then moved to second on a ground ball to third base by the next batter. It would be Nicholas Gatto to pull through in the clutch and drive a ball to right center field to score the game tying run and send the game to extra innings.
Whitestone would not take long to respond with a single by their third basemen, Halley. Ryan McNamaro would then step up to the plate and deliver what would end up being the game winning RBI on a triple into the right field gap to score Halley.
Tyler Schubert was called upon by Whitestone to close the game and he did just that. After retiring the first two batters of the inning he would fan the final batter in order to earn himself the save and sealing the deal on his teams 2-1 victory in the East Coast Labor Day Bash tournament.
