Following East Hampton High’s second bottom-of-the-seventh-inning win of the season, Vinny Alversa, Bonac’s varsity baseball coach, said that he’d prefer not to win that way, however thrilling it might be for his players and East Hampton’s fans.
Friday’s exciting 4-3 win was the third in a row in East Hampton’s league-opening series, and improved the team’s overall record to 6-3. Will Darrell pitched East Hampton to a 7-1 win over the Hurricanes here on April 10, and Carter Dickinson shut out Westhampton Beach 10-0 in an away game two days later in which the Bonackers had 12 hits. Jack Dickinson, Carter’s older brother, pitched most of Friday’s contest, striking out 13 during the course of the six innings he worked. Hunter Eberhart, who relieved him in the top of the seventh, was credited with the win.
Eberhart likewise was credited with an electrifying 2-1 bottom-of-the seventh comeback win here over Sayville on March 30 after having relieved Dickinson with two out and Sayville leading 1-0 in the top of the sixth.
On Friday, the visitors put one run across in the top of the first, the result of a walk, a wild pitch, and an infield hopper that Eberhart, who began the game at short, could not make a play on.
After Hudson Meyer, Egan Barzilay, and Carter Dickinson went down one-two-three in the bottom half of the first, Westhampton tacked on two more runs in its second at-bat.
Dickinson caught the first batter looking at a called third strike, but hit the next with the count 0-1, after which the Hurricanes’ eighth hitter bunted himself on and the ninth batter drew a walk. With the bases loaded and one out, Henry Meyer, Alversa’s assistant, came out to the mound, but, after some discussion, kept Dickinson in.
When play resumed, the visitors tried a suicide squeeze. The bunt went straight out to Dickinson, who wound up eating it, even though he seemed to have enough time to flip it home to his catcher, Nico Horan-Puglia, in time.
With the bases still loaded with one out and the second hitter up, Westhampton tried the same thing, but this time the batter failed to bunt the ball, resulting in a force at the plate. Horan-Puglia’s subsequent throw to third base rolled into left field, enabling Westhampton’s third run of the game and second of the inning.
Darrell, a powerful left-handed hitter, doubled to left center field to lead off East Hampton’s second at-bat. He advanced to third on Horan-Puglia’s subsequent short-to-first groundout. The next hitter, Tyler Hansen, drew a walk, and, with Calum Anderson up, Hansen stole second. Anderson struck out on a 3-2 pitch, and the count was 0-2 on Danny Lester when Darrell took off for home, sliding in ahead of the tag. Lester’s groundout to first ended the inning, but thanks to Darrell’s theft of home, East Hampton was on the board.
Dickinson found his groove in the top of the third, striking out Westhampton’s number-four hitter on three straight strikes, after which he fanned the fifth and sixth batters in short order.
With two out in the bottom of the fifth, Dickinson singled to right field, but Meyer flied out to center to end the inning.
The visitors’ fifth batter reached first base safely on an error to lead off the top of the sixth. A sac bunt advanced him to second, but Dickinson struck out the next two hitters to face him, ending his notable stint.
And so we come to the bottom of the seventh with East Hampton still trailing 3-1. Horan-Puglia lofted a high pop that the pitcher caught to begin it, but then Hansen drew a walk and Anderson also walked, on a 3-2 pitch. It was then that Alversa, who had initially thought he might bat Chase Siska in place of Anderson, brought in Siska to hit for Lester.
Siska did not disappoint. With the count 2-2, the junior, who Alversa said afterward has been coming on of late, singled to right field, driving in Hansen and putting runners at the corners for Dickinson, whose bunt to the right side allowed Mike Locascio, pinch-running for Anderson, to come across with the game-tying run.
When Meyer came to the plate, Bonac’s bench and the team’s numerous fans were in an uproar. With the count 1-1, and with Siska having taken off from second, Meyer grounded hard toward short. Westhampton got the force at second, but East Hampton’s lead-off hitter beat the throw to first as Siska slid in with the winning run, to be surrounded moments later by gleeful teammates.
In the team huddle afterward, Alversa said that while Westhampton had given them one on Wednesday, it hadn’t that day. Had they played a little more heads-up earlier, the elder Meyer said, alluding to some indecisiveness in the infield, a last-inning comeback might not have been required. But no one could deny it had been fun.
Alversa said things wouldn’t get easier. On Monday East Hampton was to have begun its second series, at Rocky Point, “a very, very good team.”
