There wasn't much to write home about when it came to Saturday's 4-0 final-round loss to East Islip, though East Hampton High's 18-6 baseball team, as its coach, Vinny Alversa, had predicted last winter, had a fine season.
In early March, Alversa, who, along with his assistant, Henry Meyer, played on the school's last county championship team 30 years ago, said he'd be shocked if the senior-heavy Bonackers didn't finish at the top of League V. He proved to be a little off — Eastport-South Manor did, with an 18-0 record, thus earning it the top seed in the county's AA tournament. East Islip, which went in at 16-2, was the second seed; East Hampton was the fourth.
A dramatic 7-3 extra-inning win over the Sharks in a losers bracket game played on May 27 — the first time Alversa's charges had defeated Eastport-South Manor in the five games the teams had previously contested this spring — enabled East Hampton to vie with East Islip, which had sailed through the winners bracket, for the title.
To have won it, East Hampton would have had to beat the Redmen twice in a row, though it didn't come to that given the two-hit shutout Lucas Patton, mixing his deliveries well, pitched at the Middle Country Athletic Park Saturday.
East Islip, the home team, jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the bottom of the first inning. Its lead-off hitter, Alex Ciampi, beat out a bunt to Trevor Meehan, Bonac's pitcher, who couldn't find the handle. Dylan Casani followed with a base hit deep to short. Thomas Costarelli then grounded into a force play at second as Casani advanced to third. With runners at the corners and the count full, Mike Sassone, the cleanup hitter, plated Casani and Costarelli with a grounder that zipped by the second baseman, Tyler Hansen, into the outfield.
Victoreddy Arguero led off Bonac's half with a high, curling flyout to right field — the wind was blowing in on that cloudy day, leading to a number of high, fading fly balls to the right side of the diamond. Meehan then grounded out short-to-first for the second out, though Liam Cashin drew a walk, and an error by East Islip's first baseman, who dropped the third baseman's throw, enabled Hudson Beckmann to reach safely.
That brought up Liv Kuplins, who bats ninth in the lineup. With the count 3-2, Kuplins singled to right-center field as Cashin rounded third and headed for home. The right fielder Costarelli's throw was on target as Cashin slid in head first. And though it seemed his left hand touched the plate an instant before Matthew Pasfield's tag, Cashin was ruled out, a call that shocked the 75 or so Bonac fans who had made the trip up the Expressway to Selden.
And that was pretty much it excitement-wise for East Hampton that day.
After the Bonackers had gone down quietly in the top of the fourth, the Redmen tacked on a run in the bottom half. John Talt, after drawing a one-out walk, stealing second, and advancing to third on a 4-3 groundout, scored it as the result of a two-out single to right center by the number-eight man, Chris LaMacchia.
With one out in Bonac's fourth, Beckmann lined a base hit to left center — the second hit off Patton — but was stranded at first base as Kuplins fouled out to right and Hansen was erased 4-to-3.
The Redmen made it 4-0 in the fifth. With two outs, Costarelli reached first base safely on a throwing error by the third baseman, Mason Miles, and subsequently stole second and went all the way to third on an overthrow. Sassone then plated him with a hot single through the box, after which Meehan caught Talt looking at a called third strike.
After Hudson Meyer had grounded out second-to-first in leading off East Hampton's sixth, Miles lined a shot to left center that looked as if it would be a hit, but the center fielder, Casani, ran it down. Carter Dickinson flied out to end the frame.
Arguero drew a leadoff walk in Bonac's last at-bat, but a subsequent double play erased him and Meehan. Cashin, with the count 1-2, fouled off three straight pitches before grounding out second-to-first, the last out of the game, leading Patton's teammates to bury him under a gleeful pyramid on the mound.
"They beat us — we didn't beat ourselves, as we did in that first playoff game with Eastport-South Manor," Alversa was to say afterward. "Hats off to them. They were better than us. We didn't hit the way we generally do . . . we just got beat."
Moreover, he had not been wrong when he'd said in March that he expected this team would be a special one. Making it to the county finals for the first time in 30 years had proved him out.
"I'm so proud of these guys," he said, especially of his nine seniors — Dickinson, Meyer, and Hansen, the tri-captains, among them — adding that the program, a year-round one now, remains on a very firm footing.
