Bridgehampton/Ross Baseball Falls to Chapel Field in Class D Regional Final

Chapel Field Christian continues to be a thorn in the side for the Killer Bees, this time on the baseball diamond.

The Lions have dispatched the Bees twice the past two winters in Class D regional finals on the basketball court. Of course, with both schools being so small in terms of sheer numbers, many of the same players who appeared on the court also play baseball. There was a sense from the Bridgehampton/Ross baseball team that perhaps it could exact some revenge for those losses on Saturday, when the two schools met once again on Teddy W. Lorenz Memorial Field at the Cantine Veterans Memorial Complex in Saugerties.

But Leam Powell stood in the way.

The somewhat tall and slender right-handed senior was, as advertised, consistently using a mid 80s fastball and a sneaky slider keeping the Bees offense off kilter throughout the game. He struck out 16 Bees and only allowed one hit while also hitting one batter in leading the Lions to a 2-0 victory and with it a trip to the New York State Championships in Binghamton this weekend.

It was a tough, and somewhat frustrating, way to lose for the Bees, many of whom — mostly the six departing seniors — were visibly upset after the loss. For many of those seniors, it brings a close to something that they very much started, which was to bring a storied varsity baseball program back after a 43-year hiatus. And it only took them two years to make a postseason run that included winning the county C/D qualifier over Port Jefferson and coming one win away from a spot in the state semifinals.

“Super proud of our guys. I was just telling them, when we rolled this plan out five years ago, people were like no way Bridgehampton is going to have a baseball team,” said head coach Lou Liberatore, who helped start the program five years ago. “Well, not only do we have a baseball team, but in year two we’re a playoff team, we win the C/D title and go to a regional. Next year, we’ll take that next step. They’ll look back on this season and realize how much of a success it was.”

Chapel Field opened the scoring in the bottom of the third inning when Bryce Hollo led off with a triple into the right field corner. After senior starting pitcher Scott Vinski induced a fly ball out to centerfield, the next batter, Logan Garvey, hit a slow ground ball to senior third baseman Dylan Fitzgerald, who fielded the ball cleanly, thought about throwing home to get Hollo racing for the plate, but opted to throw to first instead. Garvey, hustling down the line, beat the throw and all runners were safe making it a 1-0 game.

The Bees broke up Powell’s no-hit bid in the top of the fifth inning when Ross freshman Shawn Gnyp led off the inning with a base hit to left center field. Knowing it was going to be rare to have base runners for much of the game, the Bees did what they could to move runners along, either by sacrificing them over or stealing bases, but to no avail. They couldn’t get anyone past second base.

Chapel Field responded in the bottom half of the inning when Hollo once again led off with another triple, this time one-hopping the fence in left center field. The next batter, Mike Bonagura, hit a sacrifice fly to center field to give the Lions a 2-0 lead, which, with the way Powell was pitching, seemed like an insurmountable lead.

Bridgehampton did get a runner on, to start the top of the seventh inning, when Ross freshman Tate Foard struck out swinging and the ball got away from Garvey, the catcher, allowing Foard to reach first base. But the next three batters were all sat down in order and the Lions once again celebrated.

“Really proud of the overall effort of this game and all season,” Liberatore said. “Leam Powell is probably the best pitcher we’ve seen all season. He came out and did what great pitchers do and what aces do and that’s shut us down. We tried to make some adjustments halfway through the game to get some more balls in play, but he was keeping us off. Really good fastball in the mid 80s, really good slider late in counts, just stuff we hadn’t seen all year in our league. He was as good as we’ve seen.

“Scott was very good for us,” the coach said of his own starting pitcher. “It comes down to timely hits. Unfortunately for us, their best hitter, Bryce Hollo, he killed us today with the two triples. He wound up scoring in both of those innings. That’s what those games come down to, timely hits. But hopefully we learn from this. We feel we have a really good core coming back next year and that we’re in this game again and we find a way to get the job done.”

Vinski said that he felt really good during pregame warmups and it showed on the mound. Chapel Field got runners on second and third in the bottom of the first, but Vinski got himself out of it when he fielded a chopper back at him. He was very economical with his pitches, only throwing 77 of them in the six-inning complete game, striking out four and only allowing three hits. He also had to work around some misplays in the field that he never allowed to bother him.

“I felt great. Even for my warmups I knew I’d be in the zone all day,” he said. “I left it up to my defense to make a lot of the plays, which they did. I just had two bad pitches.”

Vinski came up big down the stretch for his team, pitching a complete game in the C/D victory over a good Port Jeff team that defeated Pierson for the Class C Championship. He said it was big for him to have a bounce back season.

“There was something about it. I struggled last season. I was in the zone a lot, got hit a lot,” he explained. “Being able to kind of find myself again this year was great.”

Overall, when the players reflected back on the season, it was very positive. Ross junior Milo Tompkins said it was one of the most fun seasons he’s ever played.

“I’ve played a lot of baseball in my life, and I haven’t enjoyed a lot of it except for this season,” he said. “I have had a blast playing with these kids. If you would have told me at the beginning of the season we were C/D Champions and we would be playing here right now, I would have thought you were lying. We’ve had an incredible season. That kid, you have to hand it to him, he was a great pitcher. It’s baseball. It’s what makes baseball so great. It’s a tough game, tough to lose, but it’s been a great season. I’m so happy I had it with these guys. It was awesome.”

“If there was one thing to describe the team this year, it was resilient,” Scott Vinski added. “We had our ups and downs, but we did enough to make it to this game. So proud of everyone on the team.”

“And I think a lot of people forget we started 1-6,” his twin brother, Kris Vinski, said. “Came down to the last day of the regular season.”

The Vinski Brothers, along with Fitzgerald, Jack Boeshore and Hugo Kapon, along with Ross senior Yudai Morikawa, are the six graduating this month. Liberatore said they’re all going to be remembered for bringing the program back and it’s something no one can take away from them.

“Couldn’t ask for a better group of seniors. They really laid the foundation of what is expected from our program moving forward,” he said. “They served as great role models for the younger players. I know they’ll be around checking out our games, but any winning we have moving forward they are a part of because they really started it all. Couldn’t be more proud.”

The general consensus is that the program is in very good hands moving forward and that both schools, Bridgehampton and Ross, are in it together for the long haul.

“When we were building for this we built it around upperclassmen, obviously we have six seniors graduating, but there’s a lot of younger talent that’s been playing — Shawn, Tate, Kai [Alversa],” Kris Vinski explained. “We’ve got talent everywhere, all ages, so I think we’ve done a really good job building, not just for this year but for the future as well.”