It was baseball, baseball, baseball on Saturday, beginning with the East Hampton Little League organization’s opening day ceremonies at the Stephen Hand’s Path ball fields presided over by Dave Rutkowski, who is again the league’s president.
Rutkowski said more than 400 boys and girls from 5 through 12 are playing the sport here, and it seemed that most of them were there, along with parents and relatives.
Alex Walter, Bill McGintee, John Geehreng, and Bill Barbour, coaches of championship Little League teams of the past, threw out the first balls to their grandchildren. The 2021 District 36 champion girls softball team was honored as part of the festivities. Its roster comprised Ellie Assogna, Valentina Balducci, Dylan Centalonza, Fallon Centalonza, Ella Field, Jackie Geehreng, Caroline Kelley, Cadence Page, Peyton Parado, Allison Rade, Ellie Reidlinger, Alexa Schaffer, and Maeve Tupper. Justin Geehreng, Jeff Tupper, Whitney Reidlinger, and Mark Assogna were the coaches.
Also at the Little League opener Tim Garneau was taking donations for an ambitious Bonac Booster Club grandstand project that he and his fellow committee members would like to see built someday soon at East Hampton High School’s varsity baseball field. “We’re halfway there when it comes to raising the $120,000 that we need for the first phase, the tension netting backstop, just like the ones you see here,” Garneau said.
When fully funded, the project is to include a four-row, three-section 132-seat grandstand built on leveled ground behind home plate, a brick walkway whose bricks are to be sold, and renovated dugouts. Named grandstand seats are going for between $1,000 and $2,000; earmarked construction donations range from $5,000 to $25,000. Along this line, Garneau said that the Kiwanis Club had recently donated $10,000.
“Baseball is building in our community,” the grandstand committee’s flier says. “Little League has state-of-the-art ball fields, all-star team participation and travel teams are expanding. We are building up the pipeline so that more of our student-athletes can continue on to college programs. These proposed upgrades to the East Hampton varsity ball field will help elevate the experience for our children and for the community as a whole.”
As the ceremonies were going on, the East Hampton and Hauppauge varsity baseball teams were preparing to take the field at the high school not far away. Hauppauge, a favorite to win Suffolk County’s Class AA championship later this spring, had routed the Bonackers in the series’ first two games, but Vinny Alversa and Henry Meyer’s players put up a fight on Saturday, and though they lost 5-4 in the end, “it gave us confidence that we can play with the best,” Alversa said afterward.
“Carter [Dickinson] did a great job,” the coach continued. “He came out in the top of the sixth with the score tied at 4-4. He went five and three-quarter innings, giving up five runs, only three of them earned.”
The winning run was scored, as the result of an infield error, with Tyler Hansen on the mound. “We couldn’t muster anything at the plate after that,” said Alversa, who was looking forward to this week’s series with Eastport-South Manor. “We’ve got to get off to a better start in our games,” he added.
Hitting-wise, Hansen went two-for-four and drove in two runs; Hudson Meyer also went two-for-four, with a double; Trevor Meehan went three-for-four with a double, two singles, and an r.b.i., and Dickinson and Liv Kuplins each went two-for-four as well.
“Our sophomores” — Meehan, Victoreddy Diaz, and Kuplins — “had six of our 13 hits,” the coach said. The series with Eastport-South Manor was to have begun at Eastport-South Manor on Tuesday. Yesterday, the teams were to have played here, and the Bonackers are to go again to Eastport-South Manor tomorrow.
Later that afternoon, a game at Sag Harbor’s Mashashimuet Park between the home team, Pierson, and Bridgehampton-Ross wound up 6-3 in the Whalers’ favor.
Pierson’s first-year coach, Bob Manning, said later that Braedon Mott had given up one hit, struck out six, and had given up no earned runs in the four innings he worked. Dom Mancino, who also fanned six, pitched two innings, he said, and Nathan Dee, “our closer,” finished up. Mott and his mound opponent, Milo Tompkins, recently made Newsday’s list of the county’s top 100 baseball players.
“Max Krotman was our big hitter,” Manning continued. “He went two-for-three with a two-run single that broke the game open for us in the second inning.”
The win improved Pierson’s record to 4-0. “We hope to win our league — that’s our goal,” said Manning. “When it comes to the playoffs, we’ll make them.” Southold, which the Whalers rourted recently, “is the only other Class C school in the county, and I’ve been told there are no Class C teams in Nassau.”
“Lou’s a good coach,” Manning said of Bridgehampton’s coach, Lou Liberatore. “I played with his brother in high school. Saturday was the first competitive game we’ve had — our first challenge.”