Ty Forces a Tie: Gilligan’s Two-Run Shot Creates First-Ever Tie in HCBL All-Star Game History

It’s in his name.

The 10th annual Hamptons Collegiate Baseball League All-Star Game at Mashashimuet Park in Sag Harbor ended in a 9-9 tie after 10 innings on Saturday thanks to a two-run home run off the bat of Southampton Breaker Ty Gilligan (Dominican) in the top of the ninth inning. Although the players gathered around home plate after the final out to unofficially decide the game by a quick rock paper scissors — the Red Team won — officially it’s the first time in league history that one of its All-Star Games ended in a tie. Gilligan became the second straight Southampton Breaker to earn All-Star Game MVP honors with Freddy Forgione, the first-ever Breaker to do so, earning them last summer.

Gilligan said he actually heard one of the announcers behind home plate say as the pitch he hit the home run on was delivered to the plate, “and this game could be tied with one swing.”

“I heard it as the ball was coming in,” he reiterated. “It was a pretty cool moment. Pretty happy about it.”

Thanks to his outgoing and generally upbeat personality, Gilligan has become a favorite, not just in Southampton, but league-wide. While his numbers may not be where he’d like them to be this summer, he feels he’s been on the ball, just unlucky at times. He seems to have a knack for the spotlight, though, having hit a home run for HCBL in the Southeast Collegiate Prospect Showcase at Worthington Field on the campus of Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia, earlier this season.

Gilligan said his latest home run on Saturday felt good off the bat.

“I always go with my same approach and I trust in it. I saw a fastball that came up and in, I just put my hands on it, got my hands through it, it felt good,” he explained. “I put the ball in play, I’ve just been getting unlucky. It’s been going right in the gloves right now. But I’ve been hitting the ball hard, so I’m sticking to the same approach. It’ll start falling eventually.

“This is actually the most fun I’ve ever had playing baseball, genuinely,” he said. “My favorite time ever playing baseball. I love it out here.”

HCBL President Sandi Kruel said there were at least three players in the running for MVP honors, and that it wasn’t an easy decision. But at the end of the day, she and her team felt it was right to go with the player who had the final outcome on the game.

“He’s just such an honorable player. It was deserved,” she said of Gilligan. “He’s full of energy, he’s got a smile that doesn’t stop and he’s so happy all the time. He just comes here to play and have a good time and that’s really what makes him shine.”

Kruel said that the game was going 10 innings no matter what on Saturday with pitching being at a premium at this point of the season, and with the Red Team, comprising players from the Shelter Island Bucks, South Shore Clippers and Westhampton Aviators, taking a commanding 7-0 lead in the bottom of the second inning, thanks in large part to a three-run home run by Aviator Ethan Guerra (Paris JC), a tie didn’t seem in the cards. But the Blue Team, comprising players from the North Fork Ospreys, Sag Harbor Whalers and Southampton Breakers, scored the game’s next seven runs, split between the third and fourth innings, to tie the game. Osprey Christian Fagnant (Amherst) hit a grand slam in the third inning that pulled the Blue Team within two runs of the Red Team’s lead at 7-5. In the fourth inning, Southampton’s Martin Marintchev (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute) hit a bloop single to right that allowed two runs to come across and tie the game at 7-7.

The Red Team loaded the bases in the seventh inning and Clipper Matthew Tempone (Massachusetts-Dartmouth) hit a hard ground ball to first base that was knocked down and stayed in the infield, but fellow Clipper Aedan Forde (New Haven) and Aviator Tyler Smith (Saint Peter’s) were both able to score on the play to give it a 9-7 lead, leading to Gilligan’s heroics in the top of the ninth.

After all was said and done, three home runs were hit — all over the fence in right field — and on a windy day to boot. That came much to the surprise of Kruel, who thought, overall, it was a well played and exciting game.

“I thought it was excellent. Everybody played well. It was great,” she said. “Home runs at Mash Park, which is almost unheard of, and there must have been 10 balls to the warning track, which was amazing.”

With a shortened season this summer, there are less than two weeks remaining in the regular season before playoffs begin. The top four teams in the league will advance, and it should be an interesting end to the season with five games or so separating those top four teams as of Monday evening.

“It’s going to be crazy,” Kruel said. “It can be anybody’s game at any time. I have seen Sag Harbor get mercied and then come back and mercy someone else. I have seen it throughout the entire league, it’s been back and forth, so it really is going to be anybody’s.”