by James Ryder
The 9u South Shore Chiefs met up with the hometown Smithtown Bulls Friday night at Gaynor Park.
What began as a dominating stretch from the Bulls, who went up as much as 8-2 in the fifth inning, turned out to be a thriller down to the last out. South Shore went on a tear in the bottom of the fifth inning, where they scored nine runs, and held on to win it 11-10.
Smithtown scored four of their eight runs in the top of the first inning. Michael Zumo led off with a walk and stole second and third base. The two-hitter Nick Gentile also drew a walk. A passed ball allowed Zumo to steal home for the first run of the game. Jayden Famighetti hit a grounder that rolled into right field on an error by the second baseman. This brought home Gentile to make it 2-0. Later in the inning, despite a pitching change, Smithtown scored two more on hits by Connor Biglin and Mark Nocerino, who each hit an RBI single.
In the bottom of the first, South Shore got one run back. It came on and RBI single from Tyler Baktis. Both teams went scoreless in the second inning. Over the course of the next two innings, Smithtown expanded their lead while South Shore struggled to keep up. Blake Stockwell had a 2 RBI opposite field single to right field to make it a 6-1 ballgame. Then, after a 1-2-3 inning from Bulls pitcher Dylan McHugh, Smithtown tacked on another two runs. Jessie Lishinsky popped out to the catcher for the second out of the top of the fourth, but a throw to first trying to catch the runner sailed past the base. This allowed Zumo, who led off the inning with a single, to score again. Immediately after, Ronan Keely’s RBI single to right-center field gave the Bulls an 8-1 lead.
Again, the Chiefs responded, but only managed a single run. Yet another RBI single, this time courtesy of McHugh, brought the score to 8-2. Smithtown finally went scoreless in the bottom of the fourth, setting the stage for South Shores epic comeback.
As mentioned, the Chiefs scored nine runs in the top of the fifth inning. Naturally, they batted around, resulting in five batters having two plate appearances in the frame. Brady Almeida drew a walk to leadoff the inning. After stealing second and third, he crossed the plate when Aiden Van Nostrand grounded out to shortstop. JoJo Laudisio also walked, and Colin Doherty was hit by a pitch. Baktis hit a pop up to SS, but it fell to the dirt, resulting in the bases getting juiced. Back-to-back walks from MJ Reimers and Luke Morey cut the Bulls lead down 8-5. McHugh earned two more RBI’s with a single to CF and was followed up by a passed ball that tied the game. Finally, the Chiefs took the lead on Almeida’s ground ball to third base. The throw home was too late, and kept the bases loaded with only 1 out still. Doherty capped off the offensive onslaught with a 2 RBI triple deep to LF to give his team an 11-8 lead.
South Shores have HUGE bottom of the fifth inning. They came back from down 8-2 and held on for the 11-10 win! Here is Coach Joe talking about how his team always comes to bat with the same approach: pic.twitter.com/GBzG6ZDsAF
— Axcess Baseball LI (@axcessbaseball) July 27, 2019
These final two runs turned out to be the deciding factor in the game. Smithtown wasn’t discouraged by their lead collapsing. In the top of the sixth, they drew back to back leadoff walks from Gentile and Famighetti. Baktis, who came in to pitch the final frame, struck out the next two batters. Amazingly, Smithtown scored two runs on back to back passed balls. By the time this occurred though, Biglin was down to his final strike. He hit a ground ball to second base that ended the game.
