The Town Police Benevolent Association squad had high hopes going into the East Hampton Town women’s slow-pitch softball league final with the pennant-winner — and defending playoff champion — East End Land Planning, but the P.B.A.’s forward movement was arrested in the end by the fact that four of its players — two mothers, Laura Kearney and Tara Gurney, returning their daughters, Julia and Ella, to college — were absent last Thursday, effectively shooting the insurgents in the foot.
Still, with only eight in the field, rather than the customary 10, the P.B.A. almost punched its ticket to a third game, losing 9-8 in the end.
East End Land Planning, whose co-player-managers are Katie Osiecki, the pitcher, and Kathy Sarlo, the right-center fielder, jumped out to an early lead, scoring 3 runs in the top of the first inning, with Sarlo, Kim Havlik, and Shelly Bobek getting the r.b.i.s.
Sarlo, a left-handed hitter, made it 5-0 in the second, with a two-out opposite field inside-the-park home run that scored the leadoff hitter, Mylan Eckhardt, who had reached first base safely on a throwing error, ahead of her.
The P.B.A. got on the board with 3 runs in the third. T. Schirrippa, the pitcher and number-two hitter, singled to lead off and slid in ahead of a high throw to second after the third baseman, Ava Locascio, had fielded a grounder hit her way by Elise Thorsen. With the ball still in the outfield, Schirrippa alertly advanced to third. That brought up the cleanup hitter, and rifle-armed shortstop, Nicole Fierro, who, with runners at the corners, drove in Schirrippa with a sharp single that sent Thorsen to second.
The runners were soon on the move after Tara Fordham, one of whose legs was taped, hit a grounder toward short that Thea Grenci bobbled before throwing to third, hoping to force Thorsen, who seemed to beat the throw by a half-step, which would have loaded the bases with no outs. But the plate umpire ruled Thorsen out at third, a call that Fierro protested, but to no avail. With Schirrippa having gone in to run for Fordham, Dawn Green then singled, driving in Fierro with the P.B.A.’s second run, and Schirrippa came all the way around with the P.B.A.’s third run when Malarie Bell grounded out short-to-first. That was the P.B.A.’s second out; Julie Terry made the third.
A two-run home run over the center fielder’s head by Osiecki, a blast on a 3-1 pitch that scored Eckhardt, who had led off with a single, ahead of her, made it 8-3 Planners in the top of the fourth. Osiecki set the P.B.A. down in order in the bottom half, all of them flyouts to Eckhardt in left field.
East End Land Planning made it 9-3 in its fifth on a two-out scratch hit with runners at the corners by Danielle Quackenbush, the 10th hitter in the lineup, a hit that scored Havlik from third with what would prove to be the winning run.
The P.B.A. got one back in its half of the inning, and after Schirrippa retired Osiecki, Grenci, and Kara North, E.E.L.P.’s third, fourth, and fifth hitters, in order in the sixth, exploded for 4 runs in its sixth as Fierro, Fordham, Bell, and Terry got the r.b.i.s.
An unassisted double play by Fierro, who had been gunning runners out at first all night, took the Land Planners out of their seventh. Schirrippa led off the P.B.A.’s last at-bat with a base hit, but Thorsen and Fierro flied out, and, with Schirrippa at second, Osiecki clinched the championship as Fordham grounded out.
