Connetquot is the 2019 Suffolk AA Champs ! They will face Massapequa in the Long Island Championship on Saturday pic.twitter.com/DVn38w3IzF
— Axcess Baseball LI (@axcessbaseball) June 4, 2019
When Connetquot made a deep postseason run into the Suffolk AA Final Four last season, many felt that they had overachieved.
Everyone except the players, who felt they should’ve won it all.
One year later, they have climbed the mountain top and captured the AA County Championship for the first time since 2015. They did so with a 14-1 victory against No.1 seed Ward Melville and ace Max Nielsen.
The T-Birds and their high-octane offense had been held in check in Game 1 by Ryan Hynes, but defeated Ethan Farino yesterday. They faced UCONN-commit Max Nielsen, who was coming off an 18-K master piece on Friday against West Islip. The Patriots turned to their ace in the winner-take-all scenario but he certainly showed some fatigue today.
He threw 30 pitches in the first inning and issued a bases loaded walk to Jared Yalon to allow the T-Birds to take a 1-0 lead.
His counterpart, Matt Brown-Eiring, also coming off a CG shutout last week, was sharp. He didn’t allow the Patriots to get on the board until the fourth inning when the game was already out of reach.
Leading up to that point, the T-Birds offense was relentless. They scored three runs in the third inning on an RBI single by Josh McGee, a bases loaded walk to Joe Zimmerman and a bases loaded HBP of James Goff to make it 4-0.
The flood gates opened up in the fourth inning.
Alex Ungar crushed a solo HR to left to open up the inning, Brown-Eiring walked and scored on Josh McGee‘s double who came around to score on Jared Yalon‘s single.
Ward Melville got on the board in the bottom of the fourth on an RBI double by Max Nielsen, but Brown-Eiring shut it down after that.
For good measure, they scored 7 runs in the fifth inning at which time much of the crowd began to head for the exits.
John O’Connell came in and gobbled up the final three innings and was at the bottom of the dog pile to send his team to the Long Island Championship.
For the Patriots. it was an outstanding season with 21 wins. They came up just shy of their ultimate goal but it was a successful season nonetheless.
Next order of business for the T-Birds is trying to take down the reigning State Champion Massapequa Chiefs. The Chiefs possess Long Island’s highest-scoring offense led by Travis Honeyman, Johnny Castagnozzi, Nick Schwartz and a host of others. The Chiefs will likely send ace Joe Savino to the hill who is 8-1 and could hear his name at some point during tomorrow’s draft.
