The East Hampton Little League’s U-12 all-star baseball team suffered “a tough loss,” in its manager Chris Carney’s words, in the District 36 championship game versus the North Shore Nationals at Rocky Point on July 10.
Both teams went into the showdown with 6-0 playoff records, though North Shore, a frequent district champion, was accorded the top seed given the fact that it hadn’t been scored on during the postseason. East Hampton, which won the coin toss to determine which squad would be the home team that night, had given up only three runs in that span.
“It’s tough to defeat North Shore — for one, they’ve got four times the population we do, and it’s always tough to win on their field,” Carney said the next day.
North Shore went up 4-0 in the top of the second inning, during which “we made one or two errors, and hits of theirs found the gaps.” Scott Abran, East Hampton’s starter, “pitched great — it was just that one inning.”
Meanwhile, East Hampton “battled back,” putting five runs across in the bottom of the fourth, three of them crossing the plate on a bases-loaded triple by Ryan Balnis, the cleanup hitter, to take a 5-4 lead. “It was the first time, I believe, that North Shore’s been scored on all season,” said Carney.
Alas, for Bonac fans, that one-run lead wasn’t to hold up. Jackson Cook, who relieved Abran with one out in the fifth, and with two North Shore runners on, pitched out of the jam, fanning the two hitters he faced, but East Hampton was held scoreless in the bottom half and in its last at-bat, after North Shore, facing Cook and Kix Bock, who finished up, had broken the game open with seven runs in its sixth.
In recounting the disastrous sixth, Carney chiefly recalled “two shots, one down the right-field line and one down the left-field line, that landed fair by inches. . . . It was a tough way to lose, but, as we told the kids, we had a great run. They played really hard, we loved the way they battled back. . . .”
About half of those on the roster would continue playing summer ball with Riptide youth teams overseen by East Hampton High School’s coach, Vinny Alversa, Carney added.
The 2-1 semifinal win that put East Hampton into the final, played here with Riverhead on July 8, couldn’t have been more tightly played nor more exciting.
In recounting the action, Carney said that the visitors manufactured a run in the top of the third inning, the run coming in on the sole hit East Hampton’s starter, Ryan Balnis, was to give up in four and two-thirds innings he worked that night.
In East Hampton’s fourth at-bat, Casey Carney, who hits ninth in the lineup, bunted safely to lead off. Carl Gatlin then drew a walk, and, after a subsequent out, James Balnis, the 12th hitter, drove a pitch up the middle that allowed Carney to come all the way around from second base to score the tying run on what his father said was “a close call at the plate.”
Abran, in relief of Balnis, “got us out of a jam in the fifth, and then he took them down one, two, three in their sixth,” which set the scene for a dramatic finish.
“With one out, James grounded a ball to third that he just beat out, which brought up the top of the order,” the elder Carney began. “Our leadoff hitter Alex Bobek’s sacrifice bunt moved James to second, and, with two outs now, and with Kix up, James stole third. With Kix still up, the catcher let a pitch get by him, and James, who had moved up the line, took off for home, after hesitating at first. Was he told to go? I don’t think so — I think he just took off on his own. . . . Their catcher ran back to the backstop, which isn’t all that far behind the plate, and dashed back with the ball to try to put the tag on him, but James slid in safely . . . it was very close. You don’t see a walk-off steal of home very often. Everyone went crazy.”
