Pierson Baseball on Top of Its Game Heading Into This Week’s County Championship

The Pierson baseball team was expecting a competitive series against fellow Class C and League X foe Port Jefferson. And while it was in spurts, ultimately the Whalers swept the three-game series putting themselves firmly in the driver’s seat when it comes to this week’s Suffolk County Class C Championship series, which began on Tuesday.

The same two teams, the Whalers and Royals, will play each other again this week for the county title. After the opening game on Tuesday, game two will be played at Port Jeff on Thursday, May 18, at 4 p.m., with game three, if necessary, back at Mashashimuet Park in Sag Harbor on Friday again at 4 p.m. Results of the series can be found at 27east.com later this week and in next week’s edition.

After losing its first two games of the season, Pierson has clearly been on a roll, having won 15 games in a row and 17 of its last 18 leading to its League X title. The Whalers last loss came on April 10, a nonleague game, to Southampton.

Going into last week’s series, there was more on the line than just home field advantage for the county championship series. Port Jeff knocked off Pierson at last year’s counties on a walk-off game three, which left a sour taste in the mouths of the returning players. They had to wait until the very last series of the season to exact some of that revenge, but as their head coach Jonathan Schwartz noted on the eve of their postseason run on Monday evening, there is a lot more baseball to be played.

“Everyone’s been waiting for this chance to try and redeem ourselves, to take back the county. We’re one step closer, but the job is not done yet. There is more work to do,” he explained. “These kids are excited. Nobody is satisfied with this. It’s a big year for Gavin [Gilbride] and Christian [Pantina] who have been on varsity for four and five years now. They both see an opportunity here with this team and if they win two more games, we get to skip Long Island and go right to a regional game. So they see a big opportunity out there for them, for the team and the program.”

Pierson won the first game of last week’s series, 7-3, on May 10, then clinched home field advantage in the county championship series with a 3-2 victory the very next day. Schwartz said both teams were kind of unsure how to go about things in the third and final game of the series with everything to be played for already decided, so both teams used it to get some playing time in for players and to work on a few things.

Pierson actually fell behind, 2-0, in the first game before being able to take over the game midway through. Braeden Mott, Schwartz said, didn’t have his usual command, and with Nathan Dee nursing a little bit of a sore elbow, Paul Roesel stepped up and pitched the final two innings of the game to keep the Whalers in front. Schwartz is hoping Dee will be available this week to pitch.

Dominick Mancino pitched game two and had a shutout going until the last inning when Port Jeff was able to scratch across a pair of runs to make it a one-run game. But he induced a ground ball in the infield that Pantina made a nice play on, Schwartz said, to end the game.

“Proud of our guys for fighting back right away in that first game when we were down quickly,” Schwartz said. “Like I said all year, as long as we’re pitching well and making the routine plays, we’re going to do well because we’re going to score runs, we have a deep lineup. If we score a handful of runs every game, pitch the way we can, and play defense, there’s no reason why we can’t win every game.”

If Pierson is to win the county title this week, it would play Bridgehampton/Ross in a C/D Qualifier on May 23 at the Eastport Sports Complex at 5 p.m. The winner of that game will move on to play the Class B county champion for the Small Schools Championship on May 27 at noon again at the Eastport Sports Complex. Regardless if Pierson wins or losses those games, it will play a Regional Final, again as long as it wins the county title, on June 3.