Pierson Baseball Falls in County Championship Series to Port Jeff

The Pierson baseball team had all of the momentum heading into this week’s Suffolk County Class C Championship against Port Jefferson, and then some.

The Whalers not only swept the Royals in the final League X series of the regular season the week prior, but took game one of the championship series on May 16 at Mashashimuet Park in Sag Harbor when a ground ball off the bat of Braeden Mott found its way through a drawn-in infield for the walk-off 6-5 win in the bottom of the seventh inning.

But, as they say, there’s a reason why the games are still played.

The Royals completely turned the series around with a 3-0 victory at home over the Whalers in game two on Thursday, May 18, then the following day returned to Sag Harbor for the third and deciding game pumped up and ready to go. Port Jeff scored early and often and secured their second consecutive county title with a 6-3 victory over Pierson.

Pierson head coach Jonathan Schwartz gave the Royals credit for getting significantly better from the first game his team played them from the start of the final regular season league series on May 10 to the last game of the county championship series on Friday.

“They cut out all their errors, all their mistakes. Pitchers got better,” he explained. “Every time we faced them, their coaches had their pitchers prepared for what we liked to do by slowing down and starting again, keeping our better hitters off balance. Their pitchers did a great job in that sense. They caught every ball in the outfield, even made diving catches. They made all the plays and they pitched better than us. If we didn’t stage a little comeback in the first game, we wouldn’t have even won a game. So they were ready and they improved, and not that we weren’t, but we kind of stayed the same. I thought the kids prepared well. I thought we were ready, they just got off to fast starts and we didn’t. I think they scored two or three runs early on in each game and sometimes that’s all you need in a playoff game.”

The host Royals scored three runs in the first inning of game two to take an early 3-0 lead, which wound up being the final score of what was a roughly 90-minute game. Pierson starting pitcher Paul Roesel settled in very nicely after giving up those early runs, and although the Pierson offense put the ball in play throughout, it couldn’t find any open spaces for base hits. The Whalers tried to rally in the top of the seventh when Roesel led off with a walk and Jayden Greene was hit by a pitch. Max Krotman hit into a fielder’s choice that moved both runners up a base, but then Christian Pantina hit into a game-ending double play, when the line drive off his bat was caught and the runner was caught off second base. It was not only the Whalers’ first loss since April 10, it was just the second time they’ve been shut out all year, the only other time being the season opener at Babylon on March 29.

Losing such an important game in such a way could be a little demoralizing for a lot of teams, but Schwartz said by the time the team got back on the bus to return to Sag Harbor, everyone was feeling confident about themselves once again and ready for game three.

“Even before that, Gavin [Gilbride] was already talking about game three and how we need to be ready for a great opportunity to win at home, in front of our hometown, and I just loved the way how quickly they all changed their attitudes,” he said. “It’s probably something I’m most proud of, how quickly they turned the pages mentally, and I’m really happy about that and I discussed that with them when we got back home that night. It was a great opportunity because we sort of did the same thing to them last year, how we lost game two at our place to go back to their place.”

But Port Jeff came storming right out of the gates in game three on Friday, scoring a pair of runs in the first, another pair in the third, and then it tacked on a run in the fifth to take a 5-0 commanding lead through three and a half innings. Pierson responded in the bottom of the fourth when an infield single by Krotman scored Pantina from third, then later in the inning Charles Schaefer got a base hit off the third base bag that scored Krotman and pulled the Whalers within three.

Each team tacked on a run each in the sixth inning, and then the Whalers went down in order in the bottom of the seventh and the Royals celebrated the title-clinching victory.

Port Jeff played Bridgehampton/Ross in the C/D Qualifier of the Suffolk County playoffs on Tuesday at the Eastport Sports Complex. The winner of that game will play Class B Champion, either Babylon or Center Moriches, for the Small Schools Championship back in Eastport this Saturday at noon.

The Whalers will now say goodbye to three seniors in Gilbride, Pantina and Massimo Vaccaro. Gilbride played four years of varsity baseball, while Pantina played five years and both will certainly be missed in a variety of ways, Schwartz said.

“They did a lot. They gave me everything they had as far as effort, flexibility, leadership,” he said. “I think it was good for the young guys to see how hard each of them prepared, but how different they both were. Christian was more quiet and had his own ways of preparing on his own, while Gavin worked crazy hard in practice and even harder in games. I think you can take some positives from both guys and hopefully that rubs off on the younger guys.”

And while the Whalers are young, having started a number of sophomores this past season, the valuable varsity experience everyone got this spring should bode well for the future.

“We’ll see what happens next year, either way I think certainly the experience we got this year will have to pay off at some point, being in all of those pressure games we played,” Schwartz said. “So many sophomores were able to jump into starting roles. They got comfortable even though how versatile a lot of the players were. They got better and more confident and confidence is key. They’ve all been through it and you hope they keep that same confidence of being calm and poised in pressure situations next year.”