Bay Shore defeats Plainedge, 4-0, to capture the @liboysofsummer Long Island Championship pic.twitter.com/ESy8KM6mtt
— Axcess Baseball LI (@axcessbaseball) August 18, 2020
22 years ago, Mike Herbst was a part of possibly the most unlikely playoff run in Long Island history when his Longwood Lion team went from 9-9 to a New York State Class AA Championship.
While this summer season is a far cry from the gauntlet of running the table in the Suffolk County Section XI postseason, it did resemble it in terms of the improbability of a championship run. After going 0-8 during the regular season of the LI Boys of Summer varsity division, his Bay Shore team caught fire and ultimately won four consecutive elimination games to win the truncated Long Island Championship.
They completed the feat this afternoon with a 4-0 victory over Plainedge, in what was the continuation of last night’s suspended game once the skies opened and a furious storm ensued.
This game was dominated by pitching – with the exception of one inning.
Frank Whitenack and Chris Rouleau matched up against each other and both pitcher’s had great stuff in the early going. They exchanged zeros in the first inning, with Whitenack working around a 1st & 2nd 0 out jam by striking out by Darnell Guerrero and Ryan Smerechniak.
In the top of the second, the rally began with what seemed to be a routine grounder to second off the bat of Matt Rouleau that resuled in an E4. The following batter, Joey LaFerrera, walked to bring up Brandon Soumakis. He executed a sacrifice bunt to move the runners into scoring position. Kevin Minaya drew a walk to load the bases for the dangerous Jason Ambos. The sweet-swinging lefty – who is one of the best hitters in the class – smoked a bases-clearing triple to right center field to give Bay Shore the 3-0 lead and send the crowd into a frenzy. They added one more run on an RBI ground out to third base off the bat of Ty Panariello.
Roleau was fired up, he worked in-and-out of trouble in the home half of the second, walking Mike Schock and allowing a single to Matt Wildeman but striking out Brian Rothstein and Matt Rahl to end the jam.
The offenses went silent for the most part after that.
Mike Schock – who was the hero for Plainedge in the Nassau Championship against Merrick – came on in relief in the top of the fourth. He allowed two walks but escaped the jam thanks to a pick off.
Ryan Smerechniak was called on to relieve Rouleau. He continued his great pitching this summer with a 1-2-3 innings and two strikeouts. The only question at this point in time would be how long the rain would hold off. The forecast was daunting and the thunder was already audible.
The teams exchanged zeros in the fifth inning and in the bottom of the sixth inning, weather became a factor. Smerechniak was slipping off the mound, the wind was swirling and the rain was coming in sideways. He allowed an infield single and a walk to make things interesting. That’s when the league president made the decision to suspend the game and come back the next day. It proved to be a great decision as the truly heavy rain began in about 3 minutes after the call.
So we came back this morning and the weather was absolutely perfect. The best opportunity for Plainedge to come back was in that exact at bat with two runners on, two outs, trailing by four. The Ithaca-commit came back out to the mound and made a huge pitch to end the inning and kill the rally with a strikeout.
In the top of the seventh, Ty Panariello got a hit – only the second of the game for Bay Shore – to center field. They were not able to add any insurance runs, although Rouleau did give one a ride to deep left field that looked like it had a shot.
Panariello came on in relief in the seventh inning and allowed two base runners to reach to start the inning, but made a nice defensive play to cover first for the first out. Then he made another nice play to snag a comebacker and catch the runner napping off third base. For the final out, he recorded a strikeout to put an exclamation point on the victory.
As we’ve said before, this was not the same as the high school season and the level of difficulty that it takes to win a title but it was better than the alternative and Bay Shore certainly performed exceptionally well over the four playoff games to win the title.
