East Hampton’s 11-and-12-year-old baseball and softball all-star teams are to set forth at the Stephen Hand’s Path fields this evening on quests to win District 36 tournaments, and, from what this writer has been told, and from what he’s seen, these teams ought to do well.
The all-star boys, who are being coached by John Grisch, Scott Abran, and Ray Wojtusiak, are to play Southampton, and the girls, coached by Steve Centalonza, Jeff Tupper, and Justin Geehreng, are to play Center Moriches. Both games are to begin at 5:45.
The top two from eastern and western pools — East Hampton’s includes Southampton, Sag Harbor, the North Shore, and Westhampton Beach — are ultimately to contend for the district championship. The girls tourney is double-elimination.
The considerable talent on these teams was evident at Stephen Hand’s last Thursday as the East End Excavating softball team’s frontline pitcher, Dylan Centalonza, baffled all but a couple of the Amagansett Fire Department’s hitters, and the substantial crowd, with full-windup deliveries that one is used to seeing in high school games, but not in Little League ones. Centalonza, whose twin sister, Fallon, catches her, cruised to an 11-2 win that night.
She pitched a no-hitter in the regular season, a singular feat, perhaps a unique one in East Hampton Little League history. She was the losing pitcher, however, in game two, which the Fire Department won 11-7, setting up a decisive game at the Stephen Hand’s fields Monday evening.
As for the boys game that evening, which proved to be the decisive one in the East Hampton 11-12 “world series,” it too was singular, as well played a Little League game as can be remembered by this writer, who has been used for years to seeing runners from third slide in safely at home as wild pitches caromed off the Pantigo fields’ backstops.
Ryan Balnis of Race Lane Wines & Liquors, who had pitched a no-hitter during the course of the season, was matched against East End Physical Therapy’s Aiden Stone, and both were terrific, as were each team’s fielders. There wasn’t an error throughout the eight contested innings.
East End Physical Therapy wound up a 1-0 winner and, given its 10-4 win in game one, which went nine innings, captured the championship.
Race Lane had runners at second and third with one out in the top of the second inning, but Stone retired the side on a strikeout and a popout to the second baseman.
Balnis struck out the side in the bottom of the third.
East End Physical Therapy threatened in the bottom of the fifth. Race Lane’s left fielder, Andrey Verdugo, drew applause when he caught a fly ball hit his way for out number-one. Balnis walked the second batter to face him. He struck out the third, but not before the runner had stolen second, and then, when Balnis wasn’t looking, third. A pitcher-to-first groundout ended the frame.
Likewise, Race Lane had a runner on third, with one out, in the top of the sixth, but Stone then notched his eighth and ninth strikeouts and, with a runner on third, retired the side on a popout to short.
With the game still scoreless, Stone’s pitch count was reached after he threw out the first Race Lane batter to face him in the top of the eighth. Alex Bobek came in to relieve him with Stone trading places with Bobek at short. Race Lane’s number-two hitter then lifted a fly ball toward the right-field line that looked as if it might fall in, but Carl Gatlin, Physical Therapy’s right fielder, made a nifty one-hand catch of it — “the game-saving catch,” according to Chris Carney, the team’s manager. A pitcher-to-first groundout ended the inning.
Stone got things going for Physical Therapy in the bottom of the eighth, reaching first base safely after Balnis, who had leapt high in an attempt to backhand the high-bouncing ball Stone had hit his way, couldn’t come down with it. Kix Bock, the cleanup hitter, after working the count full, singled, and both runners moved up on the throw into the infield.
Balnis, who had reached his pitch count, was relieved by Evan Shoemaker, a left-hander who, with no outs and runners on second and third, then faced Physical Therapy’s fifth hitter, Casey Carney. Carney hit a ground ball toward the mound. Shoemaker threw for the out at first base, but the relay home didn’t arrive in time as Stone slid in with the game’s and the series’ winning run.
In retrospect, Grisch, the Race Lane manager, said he should have walked Carney to set up a force play at home. Next time. Meanwhile, East Hampton Little League’s president said, “It was a great baseball game . . . the pitching, the fielding. . . . The whole season has been this way. It’s just been great baseball.”
Both the above-mentioned all-star traveling teams were “deep,” Grisch said. The boys roster comprises Colin Grisch, Stone, Bobek, Ryan Balnis, Declan Balnis, Scott Abran, Rohan Keogh, Jake Daniels, Jackson Cook, Finn Alversa, Elias Wojtusiak, and Cayden Sokol.