Bottom 4: Stephen Ierides bloops an RBI single and it’s 2-0 Seaford pic.twitter.com/0b2PKApwtx
— Axcess Baseball LI (@axcessbaseball) May 25, 2023
Although it’s important to have a roster with depth, the most important thing is having star players that perform like stars in big games.
Seaford, who entered the Nassau Class B playoffs, as the No. 1 seed thanks to a 1-loss regular season, have continued to dominate their competition and now are on the brink of a County Championship for the first time in program history. They had been a Class A school up until last year which certainly made the path more difficult.
Led by two of the top pitchers in Nassau County this year and a relentless top of the order, the Vikings cruised to a 6-0 victory over No. 5 Wheatley, who were the only team to defeat this this season. RHP Sean Costello, who was the Nassau Conference A-4 Pitcher of the Year in 2022, fired a 4-hit shutout, struck out 8, walked two batters, picked off one runner and put his team up 1-0 in the best of 3 series.
All of the scoring in this game took place in the fourth inning when Seaford exploded for six runs.
Ironically, it started harmlessly with a strikeout of Justin Jaskolski. Jason Berthel hit a single to get the rally going against James Tercynski. Chris Viggiano drew a walk, Luke Walsh followed with a single to load the bases for Billy Kind – their Game 2 starter. He blooped an RBI single to get the Vikings on the board. Although that was enough for Costello on this day, they kept the runs coming.
Stephen Ierides who has been unconscious at the plate added an RBI single of his own to make it 2-0. That brought up TJ Harrington, who was the star when we last covered Seaford’s game against Mepham in late April. He had the biggest hit of the day – a bases-clearing triple over the right fielder’s head to break the game open and make it 5-0. They added one more run on an RBI double by Costello to make it 6-0
With the way Costello was throwing, there was no question that this would be enough. In fact, he retired the last 7 batters that came to the plate. His only bit of “trouble” came in the fourth when he allowed a single to Adelphi-commit Bryan McCleary, who had an incredible moment earlier in the week when he hit a game-tying and walk-off HR in consecutive innings, and walked Louie Baldasano. Other than that, he cruised and showed why he’s among the top pitchers on Long Island.
With the victory, Seaford improves to 21-1 on the season and they will send Billy Kind to the mound today in Game 2 at Farmingdale State College which will be begin at 4:30pm. Kind has a perfect game and a no-hitter this season. Should they finish the series, they will face Babylon in the Class B Long Island Championship, who would likely send Daniel Madsen to the hill who is 11-0 on the season.
