by Gabe Zoda
Spoke to Alex Ungar after the game to talk about his thoughts on the 6-5 victory for the Clippers over the Riverhead Tomcats. pic.twitter.com/JZgEr7DtC4
— Axcess Baseball LI (@axcessbaseball) July 7, 2021
It didn’t matter what kind of baseball fan you are, the game between the South Shore Clippers and the Riverhead Tomcats had it all. This game encapsulated everything the Hampton’s League has to offer and put it on display to put on a super close and tense game of baseball.
Once the dust settled it would be the Clippers who would come out on top. They would take it by a final score of 6-5 but it would take every last pitch of the game to figure out who would come home with the W.
As mentioned before, this game had it all but it was also a true tale of two halves. In the first half of this game, there was nothing but domination from the starting pitchers from both sides.
On the side of the Clippers, Steven Kaenzig would go 4 ⅓ scoreless innings and until that 5th inning, there was nobody that could score on him. Obviously that would change in the 5th inning.
In that 5th inning, Brian Morrell would get himself into scoring position immediately with a leadoff 2B. The next batter, Joseph Gisonda hit a very slow dribbler to third base, he was able to reach first safely. This play allowed Morrell to move over to 3rd.
Joseph Gisonda got himself to scoring position after stealing 2nd during Jake Dunagan’s at bat.
Later in the AB, Dunagan would shoot a 2B out to right field which ended up scoring Morrell and Gisonda. Those runs would break the 0-0 deadlock to give the Tomcats a 2-0 lead in the top of the 5th.
We cannot mention the performance of the starting pitching for the Clippers and not talk about the pitcher for the Tomcats. For Riverhead, Jake Babuschak would get on the bump and would also put on a very strong showing.
Babuschak would one up his pitching matchup and go 5 ⅔ scoreless. In the bottom of the 6th, the Clippers would put a run on the board and it started with Jack Ryan. Ryan would start things off by walking. He would then move to second after a groundout by Aidan Larkin.
After Larkin, James Myler would step into the box and rope a 2-out 2B that would score Ryan and make the score 2-1 through 6 innings of play. From that point on, the game would shift into the second of the two halves. From pitching domination, the game then opens the offensive flood gates.
The 7th inning would show exactly that as 5 total runs would score in the frame. In the top of the 7th, the Tomcats would score 3. 2 of those runs would come off the bat of Kevin Bowrosen when he drove in a 2R single. He would drive in Chuck Sanzio and Jake Dunagan with that single. Sanzio reached on a 2B and Dunagan got on with a walk right after.
Asa Floyd would be the final run that came in after a sac fly from Will Feil. That would make the score 5-1.
The Clippers were then determined to get back into the ballgame and were not going to back down. They would deliver 2 runs in the bottom of the half and both of them would be scored off of the bat of Tim McHugh. He would blast a 2-R HR to cut the 4 run lead to 2. Through 7 innings, the Tomcats would still hold on to a 5-3 lead.
In the 8th, the Clippers would tie things up at 5. The first run of the inning came in the form of a sac fly from Matthew Brown-Eiring. Jack Ryan would come around and score that run. Aidan Larkin scored the second run of the inning after Alec Maag fisted one over to the first baseman.
It would then come down to the bottom of the 9th inning. The Clippers have seen some success in these situations in this season thus far. Alex Ungar hit a walk-off HR earlier in this season and led off the bottom of the 9th. He would launch one out to deep right field, it managed to fall over the head of the RF and was 5 feet from the fence.
He landed on 2nd and would move over to third after a 1B from Jack Peluso. Then Jack Ryan would come up to bat and hit a dribbler down the third base line. Alex Ungar started sprinting on contact and managed to get his hand in before the tag was applied for the game winning run.
The South Shore Clippers win it in Walk off Fashion after this close play at the plate that Scored Alex Ungar to get the win 6-5. pic.twitter.com/xX1m6X378S
— Axcess Baseball LI (@axcessbaseball) July 7, 2021
The Clippers (10-10) got back to .500 with this win and the Tomcats (10-8-1) try to get back on top of the league in their next games on Saturday, July 9th.
