Four teams — Sand and Sea Construction, McMahon’s, the Montauk Rugby Club, and Uihlein’s — were as of earlier this week vying for the final two berths in the East Hampton Town men’s slow-pitch softball league’s playoffs.
In the first game of the best-of-three Sand and Sea-Uihlein’s semifinal at the Terry King ball field in Amagansett last Thursday night, Sand and Sea pummeled Uihlein’s 20-7, scoring in every inning but the second. Those teams were to have played game two on Monday, with a possible game three the following night.
McMahon’s and Montauk Rugby, which split their first two, were to have played a decisive third game Tuesday. The best-of-five final series was presumably to have begun Wednesday.
Sand and Sea has been using three pitchers this season, Rob Nicoletti, Ray Wojtusiak, and Sonny Sireci, who got the call last Thursday. Jim Hansen pitched for Uihlein’s.
Sireci retired Anthony Daunt, Uihlein’s leadoff hitter, on an infield pop and Steven Bahns on a fly to center field to begin the game, but Uihlein’s number-three hitter, Pedro Garcia, caught the center fielder playing in, and scorched one over his head to the fence, pulling in at third with a resounding triple. That brought up Andy Tuthill, but he stranded Garcia as he flew out to center.
The first five Sand and Sea batters to face Hansen — Hunter Fromm, Diego Palomo, Joe Sullivan, Leonel Santiago, and Hayden Ward — all singled sharply, resulting in three runs crossing the plate, and another scored when Keith Steckowski, the sixth hitter, grounded out short-to-first. With one out, Ricky Smith slapped a single through the right side of the infield, putting runners on at the corners for Wojtusiak, whose grounder Danny Weaver, Uihlein’s second baseman, could not control, allowing yet another run, after which Sireci lined out to Weaver, Craig Caiazza reached first base safely on an infield error, loading the bases for Fromm, who was up for the second time in the inning. An onrushing Garcia one-handed Fromm’s shallow fly to center for the third out.
Uihlein’s got on the scoreboard in the third. After Weaver grounded out second-to-first, Hansen, one of the league’s elder statesmen, looped a single into the outfield and Daunt followed with a single of his own. Fromm, the shortstop, tried for a force at second after fielding Bahns’s grounder hit his way, but Santiago dropped the ball, loading the bases for Garcia, who, with the count 2-2, singled in two runs. With runners at the corners, Tuthill drove in another run, and David Hansen’s subsequent sacrifice fly accounted for a fourth before Sireci retired Todd Smith on a flyout to Palomo in left field.
At 5-4, it was a game at that point, but Sand and Sea continued to attack, scoring three runs in the third, one in the fourth, six in the fifth, and five in the sixth — a stretch during which Uihlein’s was able to plate only one in the top of the fourth, one in the sixth, and one in the seventh.
The winners, who always were looking to take the extra base, also benefited from opposite-field hits. Palomo drove in three of his teammates — Sireci, Caiazza, and Fromm — that way when, in the fifth, he, a right-handed hitter, looped a ball onto the unpatrolled grass in right field, extending Sand and Sea’s lead to 12-5. Caiazza, a lefty, doubled to left field in leading off Sand and Sea’s sixth, and later in that frame Ricky Smith’s opposite-field double made it 20-6.
The mercy rule came close to being invoked — one more run would have triggered it — but Sireci made the third out, giving Uihlein’s one more turn at bat.
