East Hampton fire trucks and police cars greeted the Little League 10-and-under all-star softball team at around 9:30 p.m. on July 3 as the joyful players returned here after defeating their Riverhead peers 5-3 in the District 36 championship game played at Stotzky Memorial Park.
Interestingly, the young Bonackers had been bageled 12-0 by Riverhead in pool play, Riverhead having jumped out to a 9-0 lead in the first inning, but the title tilt was a different matter.
“We were ready to go,” said Erin Bock Abran, the young softballers’ coach, in discussing the championship game, for which her charges were well prepared, she said. “We led the whole way, by one or two runs. Riverhead loaded the bases at times, but we found ways to get out of it.”
Madeline Abran started on the mound, and, when she began to tire after pitching four innings, Ann Peterson came on for a brief stint in the fifth, after which Abran returned to finish up.
“We manufactured two runs in the first inning, taking advantage of two walks,” the elder Abran said, adding that “it was 2-1 for a bit . . . Novella Dunham, our sixth hitter, drove in two runs with a double that gave us some breathing room and put us up 4-1 going into the fifth. Kenzie O’Connell drove in a couple of runs on fielder’s choice plays . . . Avery Dalene was great behind the plate — she threw out a runner . . . everybody played well. It was a pitchers’ battle — Riverhead has a very good one.”
East Hampton’s roster comprises Evelyn Sanders, Peterson, Abran, Sophia Schuerlein, Charlotte Vickers, Blakely Ball, O’Connell, Vera Ryan, Maggie Shea, Dalene, Dunham, Maya Eckardt, and Natalia O’Brien. Abran’s assistants are Mylan Eckardt and Kyle O’Connell.
The district win enabled the team to compete in a double-elimination “all-Long Island” tournament, Abran said. “We’ll get at least two more games . . . we might be playing every day next week.”
Baseball Team Closes In
Meanwhile, East Hampton’s 11-12 baseball team put itself in a good position to play for a District 36 title by winning both games it played at Stephen Hand’s Path last week, fittingly downing Moriches Bay 7-1 on July 1 and shutting out East End, Westhampton Beach’s entry, 2-0 two days later.
In winning those games — the first was 2-1 in East Hampton’s favor after three and a half innings — Scott Abran’s charges showed that they can prevail in tight matchups because of their all-around play.
The 5-0 Bonackers were to have played a semifinal-round game here Monday (too late for press time) with an appearance in the District 36 final up for grabs.
Ryan Balnis, who had been the winning pitcher on July 1, singled up the middle to lead off the top of the second inning of the July 3 game here. Jackson Cook’s subsequent grounder to the second baseman forced Balnis, but, with Owen Diamond up, Cook not only stole second, but advanced to third on the catcher’s overthrow.
Diamond struck out on a 3-2 pitch, but the catcher dropped the ball, and Cook came in to score as the throw beat his teammate to first. Griffin Page’s popup to second ended the inning.
Again running the bases alertly, the young Bonackers made it 2-0 in the third. Will Babinski, who hits eighth in the lineup, led off with an infield hit, and stole second with Casey Carney at bat. A well-placed sacrifice bunt by Carney enabled Babinski to go to third, and, after Walker Bohnsack had beat out a nubber to the left side of the mound and had stolen second while Carl Gatlin was in the process of striking out, Babinski scored on a wild pitch that sailed over the head of James Balnis, who was to draw a walk, putting runners at the corners for Alex Bobek, East Hampton’s leadoff hitter — and sure-fielding shortstop — whose line drive was caught for the third out.
Meanwhile, Scotty Abran, one of several strong pitchers on the East Hampton squad, continued to dominate. Doubles in the bottom of the fourth and sixth kept the visitors’ hopes alive, but Abran doused them with subsequent strikeouts. The strike that ended the game maxed out his pitch count.
“You were flawless in the field,” Chris Carney, one of Scott Abran’s assistants, told the kids afterward. “No errors. And the bottom of the order came through. Everybody played well — we’re so proud of you.”
In East Hampton’s 7-1 win over Moriches Bay on July 1, Ryan Balnis struck out nine and gave up just one hit — a towering home run over the left-field fence by the visitors’ first baseman, Rock Babinsky, who led off the bottom of the fourth.
“The good news is you’ll never see the ball again — it went halfway to Sag Harbor,” Scott Tashman, the team’s pitching coach, said after Balnis came back to the dugout. Next time, he added, with an 0-2 count and no one on base, he should waste one rather than go down the middle.
Babinsky’s moon shot made it a 2-1 game, though East Hampton put two runs across in the top of the fifth, on a triple by James Balnis and an infield single by Bobek, and tacked on three more in the sixth, with Jackson Cook, Diamond, and Babinski getting the r.b.i.s.
