East Coast Youth Baseball

by James Ryder Unfortunately, what was shaping up to be an exciting game Wednesday night at Plainedge Park came to an early end. The 9u Championship game between LI Team Beast and Long Island Baseball was called during the bottom of the third inning due to a nasty storm approaching the park. LI Beast was up 10-2 at the time and had just scored a few runs. A bit of lightning was seen during the second inning, causing about a 10-minute delay. Due to its scarcity, the game continued for another inning. In the bottom of the third, Team Beast had 9 of their 10 batters come to the plate. By the time their tenth run came into score, the thunder and lighting had intensified enough for the umpires to decide to end the game. Only minutes later, the rain started to come down in buckets. Despite the g...

by James Ryder The 10u East Meadow Mustangs and the Plainview Hawks played at Plainview-Old Bethpage Community Park Sunday at 9 AM. The Hawks had control in the beginning of the game by playing great infield defense and scoring four unanswered runs in two innings. The Mustangs found their stride in third inning, though, when they tied up the game shortly before scoring the last nine runs of the game in the fourth and fifth innings. East Meadow’s offensive stampede was cut short when the game was called due to time limit, resulting in a 13-5 finish. Despite going scoreless in the final inning, Plainview had showed nice consistency at the plate by scoring at least once in three of the other four innings. In the top of the first inning, seven Hawks entered the box and two came home to score. ...

By James Ryder The 10u Middle Country Mustangs faced off against the LI Thunder on their home field, Middle Country Park, Saturday morning. After going down 4-1 in the top of the third, the bottom half of the inning featured an offensive outburst that gained them the 6-4 lead. Ten outs later, the game was called after the top of the fifth due to time limit, and the Mustangs came out victorious, 6-5. ​As alluded to, Middle Country trailed for most of the first half of the game. The LI Thunder went up 1-0 early in the top of the first inning. James Griffin, who drew a walk and stole second base, was brought home on and RBI single to center field from Theo Braithwaite. The Mustangs also scored in the first, tying the game at 1-1 when Derek Xikis stole home on a passed ball. In the second inni...

by James Ryder Thursday nights game between the 11u Plainview Hawks and the Batting 1.000 Seminoles at Haypath Park was the ideal baseball game experience. The weather was great, the highlights for both teams offensively and defensively were plentiful, the score went back and forth the entire game, and large attendance made for an exciting environment. However, the finish to this game wasn’t ideal for either team. The result was an 8-8 tie after six innings of play. The final moments saw peak excitement, but unfortunately ended in initial confusion and ultimately some disappointment. So how’d we get there? Plainview came out of the gates hot when they scored two runs in the top of the first inning. Three straight hits, a single by Aaron Traub, an RBI double by Brett Lagallo, and an RBI sin...

by James Ryder It was a very evenly matched affair for much of Sunday’s game between the 10u Levittown Rays and Middle Country Mustangs at McLaren Memorial Park. After a scoreless first inning, both teams took turns exchanging runs through the next two and a half innings. The Mustangs would take a one run lead in one frame, and the Rays would respond with a run to tie it in the next frame. Eventually, Levittown was done settling for a tie ball game. They went for four runs in the fourth inning to take their first lead of the game. They would hang onto that lead and expand on it by scoring another four in the fifth, where the game was called once the final run crossed the plate, resulting in an 11-3 Rays victory. The back and forth scoring began in the top of the second inning thanks to a c...

By James Ryder The first game to take place Saturday morning at Plainedge Park, which began at 9 AM, was simply insane. The 9u Long Island Thunder quickly went out in front and led 10-2 after only the top of the third inning. However, Long Island Baseball, who eventually were down 12-3, rattled off 10 runs in the bottom of the fourth inning. This turned out to be in walk-off fashion, as the game was called after four innings due to the time limit. LIB also pulled off this tough feat despite having 2 outs against them. At this time, they still needed to double their runs to tie the game. LIB accomplished this and then some by coming away with the 13-12 victory. Half of the Thunder’s runs came in the first inning alone. They batted around to the tune of 6 runs off two hits, six walks, and a ...

by James Ryder The 9u South Shore Chiefs met up with the hometown Smithtown Bulls Friday night at Gaynor Park. What began as a dominating stretch from the Bulls, who went up as much as 8-2 in the fifth inning, turned out to be a thriller down to the last out. South Shore went on a tear in the bottom of the fifth inning, where they scored nine runs, and held on to win it 11-10. Smithtown scored four of their eight runs in the top of the first inning. Michael Zumo led off with a walk and stole second and third base. The two-hitter Nick Gentile also drew a walk. A passed ball allowed Zumo to steal home for the first run of the game. Jayden Famighetti hit a grounder that rolled into right field on an error by the second baseman. This brought home Gentile to make it 2-0. Later in the inning, de...

by James Ryder The 10u Ticketbash Junior Ducks met up with the Long Island Black Diamonds Saturday morning at Pro Game Field in Deer Park. The game ended up being a one-sided affair, as the Black Diamonds dominated over the course of only three innings of play. The game was called just over an hour into the game due to mercy, and the Black Diamonds took victory over the Junior Ducks, 17-0. Nicola Cespe started the game on the mound for the Black Diamonds and had great success. He had five strikeouts and only gave up a single walk. Each batter in the Ticketbash order faced him once, with the exception being leadoff hitter Anthony Kotarski, who drew the lone walk. The only other batter to reach base for the Junior Ducks was Gino Milone, who was hit by a pitch. Both events occurred in the bot...