By James Ryder
It was a chilly night Thursday at Baseball Heaven. However, the bats were hot for both 11u teams playing on Field 5. It was an offensive clinic for most of the game that ended with Team Beast besting the Islip Owls, 9-8.
The Beast opened the game by hitting back-to-back doubles, courtesy of Adrian Cruz and John Albert Franco respectively, that put them up 1-0. In the bottom of the first, the Owls started with three straight hits, including two doubles of their own. Gregory McSweeny’s leadoff double and Luis Poulos’ single led to Matt Waters’ 2 RBI double down the 1st base line for the lead. Dylan Broschart’s groundout to shortstop and James Terhune’s single to center field each scored one run each to go up 4-1.
Once again, the lead wasn’t had for long. The Beast answered with five runs to lead off the second inning. Amam Aery hit a double to the CF wall that scored Michael Brandine. Aery then stole 3rd base before scoring on Michael Massa’s infield single. Brandon Varlack’s double to the LF wall tied he game at four before Cruz’s single up the middle put them up 6-4.
In the bottom of the third inning, the Owls inched closer by scoring one run on and RBI single by Matt Pasfield making it 6-5. However, the Beast kept the game out of reach in the following frame. Each of the first four batters in the top of the fourth reached base. Brandine hit a single and was brought home on Aery’s pop fly double down the LF line. Jack Powers walked just after Aery stole third base. Massa had another RBI on an infield hit, this time a groundout to SS that allowed Aery to cross home. The score was now 8-5.
Islip ended the fourth inning by again scoring a single run to cut into Team Beast’s lead. Manny Damers hit a leadoff single to LF and stole 2nd base. McSweeny’s single to CF gave Poulos runners on 1st and 3rd. He came through with a RBI groundout to SS. After a 1-2-3 top of the fifth, the Owls finally tied the game up at 8 runs apiece. This occurred thanks to Terhune’s infield single, Pasfield’s bunt which advanced the runner to third, and a dropped pop-up in LF off the bat of Damers which allowed Terhune to come home.
Here’s coach Vince on what he told his team going into a tied top of the sixth that led to the winning run: pic.twitter.com/SbtT388K0W
— Axcess Baseball LI (@axcessbaseball) June 14, 2019
In the top of the sixth, the Beast seized the opportunity to again take the lead and scored the winning run. Brandine came to the plate with Jacob Schmutz on 2nd base. He hit a missile to the left center gap that was just out of reach of the left fielder. The ball tipped off the end of the fielder’s glove, resulting in an RBI double. The Beast had one final opportunity, this time to put the game away on the defensive side. With one out and runners on 1st and 2nd, catcher Rehan Subzwari threw out the lead runner when he attempted to steal third. Then, Aery recorded a strikeout for the final out. Both teams produced several runs, but it was the Beast who were clutch on both sides of the ball in the final inning to win the game. Final Score: Team Beast 9, Owls 8.
