10 Photos
East Hampton's Tyler Hansen squares up to bunt. DREW BUDD
Carter Dickinson blasts a double to right field that gives him and the Bonackers a 1-0 early lead in the first inning of Friday's game. DREW BUDD
Carter Dickinson settled down nicely after a bumpy first inning on Friday but was ultimately saddled with the loss. DREW BUDD
Carter Dickinson settled down nicely after a bumpy first inning on Friday but was ultimately saddled with the loss. DREW BUDD
Carter Dickinson hops off the mound quickly to field a bunt and throws to third to get the lead runner. DREW BUDD
East Hampton third baseman Mason Miles receives a throw from Carter Dickinson that gets an out. DREW BUDD
East Hampton second baseman Tyler Hansen turns the back end of a double play. DREW BUDD
Bonac catcher Nico Horan-Puglia can't hold on to a throw to try and stop an ESM player from scoring. DREW BUDD
Senior Hunter Eberhart tosses two strong innings that helped keep the Bonackers in Friday's game until the end.
East Hampton's Nico Horan-Puglia rockets a line drive back up the middle that ESM pitcher Ayden Deslauriers snagged for an out. DREW BUDD
It came down to the wire, in more ways than one, but the East Hampton baseball team qualified for the playoffs — for the second season in a row.
In the days leading up to its final regular-season series against Eastport-South Manor, Bonac head coach Vinny Alversa was under the impression that teams needed to finish at least one game above a .500 record in order to qualify for the postseason, which was a change made by Section XI years ago. About 20 minutes before the series opener on May 8 in Manorville, though, Alversa said he got a phone call from the governing body of Suffolk County high school athletics that told him due to a handful of teams on the bubble — basically in line to finish with .500 records — it decided it would allow those teams to qualify.
After losing that series opener, 4-3, in Manorville, East Hampton punched its ticket to the postseason with a 3-1 victory over the Sharks at home on May 10, improving to 9-8 and guaranteeing itself a victory in the double-elimination Suffolk County Class A playoffs, which began Tuesday at Miller Place. Win or lose, the Bonackers played the following day. For up-to-date brackets, go to sectionxi.org, and keep an eye on 27east.com later in the week for a story regarding those games.
On Friday, with their playoff spot in tow, the Bonackers returned to Manorville to finish the regular season and lost a tightly contested game, 5-4, dropping the three-game series two games to one. Coming into the series, both East Hampton and ESM were in the hunt for a playoff spot, and the Sharks have a strong baseball tradition with their program as well, so it was just an important series for them. The series victory allowed ESM to finish with a 9-9 record, as well, and with a playoff spot.
But, at the end of the day, Alversa felt his team was better and should have won the series.
“We constantly have to be better and more focused,” he said of his team on Monday. “We have to do better with runners in scoring position. Two weeks ago against Comsewogue, we had the bases loaded three or four times and couldn’t come up with a run, until all of a sudden we exploded for eight in the fifth. It’s a matter of focus and going over stuff and how I can get one run in because that one run can lead into two runs, and so on.
“I know we’re a better team, hands down,” Alversa added. “We have an amazing pitching staff. We need to give them a little bit more to work with.”
A run-scoring double by Carter Dickinson in the first and a two-out run scoring single by Tyler Hansen in the second were big hits for the Bonackers on Friday, but they still trailed, 3-2, after two due to some location issues for Dickinson on the mound. To his credit, though, Dickinson settled down nicely and only allowed a single run after the second inning.
East Hampton had its fair share of runners on base and in scoring position on Friday, but those issues reared their ugly heads again. Bonac stranded runners on base in every inning in the regular-season finale except for the last inning, in which they went down in order. They rallied for a pair of runs in the sixth to make it a one-run game thanks to a pair of consecutive bases loaded walks by Calum Anderson and Hudson Meyer, but they still couldn’t get that big hit that would have broke open the game. Hunter Eberhart relieved Dickinson on the mound in the sixth and pitched two scoreless innings.
Will Darrell did it all in game two of the series last week, allowing one run in the complete game effort on the mound and doubling to deep left center field that drove in Hansen and Nico Horan-Puglia with the game-winning runs. Ultimately, Alversa was very proud of his team for being able to qualify for the postseason once again.
“Last year was our first time making it in over 10 years, and I wouldn’t say it wasn’t sweet because it was, but I guess it was just the way that it happened that made this one a littler sweeter is all,” he explained. “Last year, we won nine in a row to start the season and clinch a spot. This season, it was dragged out until the very end, which shows we were fighting all the way to the end and that we’re coming along as a program. This is what we want to do, we want to be in the playoffs, and everybody worked extremely hard and they all put in the time and the work to get to this point, so for that I am grateful.”
