Baseball: Pt. Jeff 14, McGann-Mercy 6

After a promising first inning, the McGann-Mercy baseball team folded Tuesday afternoon in a League VIII match-up, falling to Port Jefferson 14-6.

Although the the loss dropped Mercy to 4-9 in the league, playoffs are still a possibility as they are able to petition section XI. Mercy is a class “C” team playing in a class “B” league.

“The loss eliminates us from the playoffs without petitioning,” said head coach Ed Meier. “Port Jefferson is the only other C team in our division. We can be like hey, this isn’t fair, we’ve been playing all these bigger schools and then you leave it in the hands of other people.”

Mercy jumped out to a quick 2-0 lead as they capitalized on a few Port Jefferson errors, playing small ball by moving runners across the plate with productive ground ball and fly ball outs.

“We’re usually in the right places to win the game,” said Meier. “We’re usually doing the right things. I feel like we’re learning how to play baseball the right way.”

But the lead would last only two innings as Pat Marelli, who came out firing to start for Mercy, started to labor. Port Jefferson (5-8) put together a few big hits as they tallied three runs.

Mercy would show no signs of a comeback for the rest of the game as Port Jefferson kept putting more runs on the board inning after inning. Port Jefferson scored two in the 5th, two in the 6th and then six in the 7th.

Port Jefferson was led by the electrifying bats of Joey Booker who hit 5-for-6 with two deeply driven doubles and Brian Murphy who batted 3-for-4.

Mercy showed what they were capable of doing in the bottom of the 7th inning scoring three runs. Marco Pascale and Marelli both crushed an RBI single capping an inning in which Mercy put together a string of four consecutive hits and six total.

“We’ve got to turn the page and move ahead,” said Meier. “We can’t dwell on this defeat because it happens. You need to take little tidbits of these losses and make yourself a better ball player. Tomorrow is another day.”

Mercy travels to Port Jefferson for the next game in the series Wednesday at 4:30 p.m.

RiverheadLOCAL photo by Michael Hejmej

{loadposition tab1}