Whaler Teams Looking Good
The news was uniformly good for Pierson High School’s varsity baseball and softball teams this past week. As of Monday, the boys stood atop League VIII, along with McGann-Mercy, at 5-1, and the girls, also in League VIII, were in second place, behind 7-0 Port Jefferson, also at 5-1.
The baseball team, coached by Jon Tortorella, swept a three-game series from Southold last week, by scores of 8-3, 9-3, and 8-3 behind the pitching of Jake Weingartner, Colman Vila, and Forrest Loesch.
The girls pummeled McGann-Mercy 13-1 on April 12, and edged Hampton Bays 7-6 on Friday.
Kaci Koehne, the softball team’s hard-hitting senior shortstop, went 4-for-4 in the game with Mercy, which was played on Pierson’s new softball diamond behind the high school, and Alexa Lantiere went 3-for-3 with two runs scored. Melanie Stafford was the winning pitcher.
Koehne found the fences twice in that game, with a solo shot in the third inning and a two-run blast in the fifth that ended the game because of the “mercy rule.” She drove in five runs in all, and scored four.
Koehne didn’t play in Friday’s game with Hampton Bays, so others had to step up, said Pierson’s coach, Melissa Edwards. Among them were Kasey Gilbride, who went 2-for-4 with a home run and two runs driven in, Emma Romeo, whose base hit tied the score in the bottom of the seventh, and Sariah Cafiero, who drove Romeo in with a walkoff single.
Stafford again was the winning pitcher.
It seems as if the Whalers are on a collision course with Port Jefferson, which, as of Monday, remained undefeated, at 7-0. The Royals edged the Whalers 9-7 the last time they met, on April 6. They are to meet again on May 16, a date that Edwards has circled. It could well be that these two teams meet in the county Class C final as well.
Concerning the new field, Edwards said she much preferred playing behind the school rather than in the far reaches of Mashashimuet Park.
Back to the baseball team, last Thursday’s win was the first of Vila’s varsity career. He went the distance, giving up eight hits, walking one, and striking out three. Tyler Gilbride went 3-for-5, and Hunter Leyser went 2-for-4 with a key two-run double in the sixth.
In Friday’s game with the Settlers, Aaron Schiavoni went 2-for-3 at the plate with a two-run double in the seventh. He also threw out a runner at the plate.
Others with multi-hit games that day were Sean Romeo, who was 2-for-4 with two r.b.i.s and two runs scored, and Emet Evjen, who went 2-for-3 with one r.b.i. Forrest Loesch, who pitched five and two-thirds innings in relief, allowing one run on three hits, earned the win — the first of his varsity career.