Sayville made a habit out of performing their best with their backs against the wall in 2019 and rode a hot streak all the way to winning their first Class A Long Island Championship in school history.
Although this was a far cry from the intensity in that victory against Clarke, they displayed their resiliency under coach Joe Esposito. With the score tied 2-2 entering extra innings in the Town of Brookhaven Varsity Wood Bat tournament, Pat Delaney drove in Nick Buffardi with an RBI double to give the Golden Flashes a 3-2 lead. They padded their lead with two insurance runs on RBI singles by Jack Leniec and C.J. Messina to make it 5-2, which was the final against Half Hollow Hills West.
Kevin Gross closed the deal, he recorded the victory after coming on in relief in the fifth inning.
The difference between this setting and an actual game is that Brock Murtha would have likely pitched deeper into the game. The Notre Dame-commit who put himself firmly on the radar after that no-hitter in the Long Island Championship pitched 4 innings, struck out 11 (the only other out was on a pick off at first) and allowed just one hit and one walk. It was nothing short of dominance, and he barely broke a sweat despite the humid summer weather.
Murtha was taken out after 58 pitches in part because this was his first start of the season and also because he will be headed to Notre Dame in a couple weeks and coach Esposito did not want to risk him getting injured. His normal catcher, sophomore Jack Quinlan was not in attendance tonight as he was on vacation.
Jared Kubel got the start for the Colts and he threw a scoreless first inning before running into some trouble in the second. He allowed a one-out double to Nick Buffardi who scored on Pat Delaney’s RBI single to right field. Jack Leniec followed with an RBI single of his own to left field to make it 2-0, but he was thrown out attempting to steal.
Murtha was on cruise control. He struck out the side in the first, second and fourth innings. To do so is one thing, but requiring only 58 pitches is kind of crazy.
He was relieved by Kevin Gross who allowed Hills West to tie the score on a fielder’s choice and a bloop single off the bat of Daniel Salian to score Dante Sabatino.
In the seventh inning, we got our first look at freshman Justin LoGuernic. The slender southpaw looks like he will be a star, as he was sitting in the low 80s with that whippy arm action that tends to generate tons of swings-and-misses. He worked around a leadoff walk to Murtha, and did so with a bit of flare as he caught a rocket line drive off the bat of Mark Radzewsky and doubled off Murtha at second base.
In the eighth inning, though, he wasn’t as lucky as he ran into some trouble. It was Brock’s sophomore brother, Mack, who was the pinch-runner, and scored the second run of the inning.
With the forecast calling for a tropical storm on Friday, there will be no games and there will possibly be no playoffs on Sunday as each team will need to finish out their pool play.
You didn’t really think 2020 would let us have nice weather all weekend, right?
