Fans of East Hampton High’s baseball team were treated to two wins at home this week. Sunday morning’s meeting with Harborfields, the third of the league-opening series, ended dramatically.
With two outs in the bottom of the ninth inning, a hard-hit ball through the left side of the diamond by Mike Locascio drove in Tyler Hansen with the run that earned East Hampton a 3-2 win and a series sweep. (Hansen had singled earlier and advanced to second base on a strikeout.)
Jack Dickinson, a hard thrower, pitched most of the way, though Hunter Eberhart, a curveballer who relieved him with one gone in the top of the eighth, got the win.
East Hampton took a 1-0 lead into the top of the fifth, but the visitors went ahead 2-1 in that frame as the result of a run-scoring double and an r.b.i. single. East Hampton tied it up on a sacrifice fly by Carter Dickinson, his older brother’s battery mate, in the bottom of the sixth, and there the score stood until Locascio’s shot in the bottom of the ninth.
Carter Dickinson, who packs a wallop, flied out deep to left field with runners at first and second and one out in the bottom of the eighth, and that inning ended as Avery Siska grounded into a forceout at third.
Eberhart struck out Harborfields’ cleanup hitter to lead off the top of the ninth. The next batter, a left-hander, hit a cue shot single to left, after which Jack Dickinson snagged a hard line drive hit right at him at third and fired to Colin Ruddy at first to double up the runner there, a bang-bang double play that raised his teammates’ spirits as they came to bat in their half of the ninth.
Sunday’s win capped a series sweep. East Hampton, with Will Darrell going most of the way, won game one by a score of 12-5 at Harborfields, after which Colin Ruddy downed the Tornadoes 4-1 here Friday. The George Washington recruit took a 4-0 lead into the top of the seventh, but a two-out double and a throw that pulled Carter Dickinson wide of the plate enabled the visitors to plate their run.
A sac fly by Carter Dickinson made it 2-0 in the bottom of the fifth. East Hampton added two more in the sixth, one run scoring when Hudson Meyer ripped a shot down third, and one as the result of a bases-loaded pop fly by Nico Horan-Puglia that the Harborfields shortstop couldn’t haul in.
“Three-and-Oh, let’s go,” East Hampton’s coach, Vinny Alversa, said in the huddle following game three before tipping his hat to Eberhart and Locascio.
The team, whose strong pitching could well take it far, was to have begun a three-game series with Islip Tuesday.
East Hampton’s other ball team, the softball team coached by Annemarie Brown and Melanie Anderson, lost 4-1 here to Sayville Saturday afternoon, a game in which the Bonackers battled all the way.
An infield throwing error led to Sayville’s first run, in the top of the second inning, and, in the fifth, the visitors, with two outs, scored three, the first of which came in when an outfielder dropped a catchable fly. Then, with a runner on second, Sayville’s tall catcher, Sarah Blaskiewicz, lined a home run over the center field fence.
Caroline DiSunno, who pitched a good game, led off East Hampton’s fifth with a walk after having gone down 0-2 in the count — a 10-pitch at-bat that exemplified the Bonackers’ grit. She moved to second on a 4-3 groundout, and to third on a subsequent wild pitch. Following a strikeout, Alyssa Brabant ripped a single over third that drove in DiSunno. In hopes that her charges might score more, Brown then brought Gabby Miller in to pinch-hit, but, with the count 3-1, Miller grounded out second-to-first, ending the inning.
Afterward, Brown said she was impressed by her players’ persistence in the batter’s box and with their defense, by and large, though four errors, she agreed, were too many, especially against a team like Sayville, which she thinks is the toughest in the league.
Meanwhile, she was looking forward to a busy week, with games scheduled for Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday.
Going into Monday’s nonleaguer with Hampton Bays, the Bonackers were 1-2, with an 11-1 nonleague win over Southold and an 8-3 nonleague loss to Westhampton Beach.