The Montauk School’s baseball team, coached by Will Collins, and the Springs School softball team, whose coach is Beth Crowley, finished their seasons undefeated last week, each with 9-0 records.
It is the first undefeated team that Collins, Montauk’s athletic coordinator and one of its physical education teachers, has overseen in eight years of coaching, and it’s the second time in four years of coaching that Crowley has had an undefeated team — all good news when it comes to East Hampton High School’s softball and baseball programs, for most of the players on the above-named squads are eighth graders and a number of them play travel ball in the summer as well.
The Mustangs finished out the season with wins at Sag Harbor on May 23 and at Southampton on May 25. “Everyone had a hit in the game with Pierson — it was a good team effort,” Collins said of the 6-1 win at Mashashimuet Park. Finn O’Rourke, arguably the team’s most consistent hitter, pitched the first three innings, followed by Trevor Meehan for two and Kai Alversa for one. A seventh inning was forgone “because of the time,” the coach said.
Seamus O’Reilly started for Montauk in the game with Pierson, which Montauk won 8-2, and went five and two-third innings before Brody Biondo took over on the mound.
“Finn had two triples in that game,” Collins said. “He got on base all four times.” Alversa, he added, “had two doubles.”
Collins and Crowley had nine eighth graders and seven seventh graders on their teams.
Lydia Rowan, an eighth grader who takes lessons from Sam Duchemin of Sag Harbor, and Emily Hurtado, an eighth grader who “can play just about anywhere,” were the pitchers for Springs. “Both,” said Crowley, “were very good.”
As for her squad, “they’re very tight-knit, they’ve been playing softball with each other for most of their lives, they hit well, and field well . . . they made my life easy,” Crowley said.
The closest game the Ospreys had, Crowley said, was its last one, on May 25 at Hampton Bays, a game that Springs won 11-4. The team, she added, hit well throughout the lineup, whose one-through-10 batters were Hailey Rigby, Colleen McKee, Olivia Dodge, Rowan, Hurtado, Paige Daniels, Brinley Lys, Ella Menu, Ginger Griffin, and Olivia Chapman.
“Brinley was a great catcher — she threw out runners trying to steal second, and picked them off at first and third.”
Montauk’s lineup during a 7-1 win over Springs at the Montauk School on May 20 comprised Cole Assogna, the shortstop; Biondo, the second baseman; O’Rourke, the catcher; Meehan, the first baseman; Alversa, the pitcher; Sully Matthews, the designated hitter; Dante Speranza, the center fielder; O’Reilly, the third baseman; Austin Payne, the right fielder, and James Walsh, the left fielder. O’Rourke went 3-for-3 that day, all singles, and scored three runs. Two of his hits came against Victor Diaz, the only hits the hard-throwing Springs eighth grader gave up that day.
“It was a really great group to coach — in every way,” said Collins. “Before that game with Springs, one of our teachers, a pre-K teacher, Wendy Flanagan, had died, and they came to me and told me they wanted to do something to remember her. We put her initials behind the mound, on a place that’s not touched.”
“They’ve been really a great group to coach — I won’t forget them.”