After both No. 4 McGann-Mercy and No. 3 Hampton Bays lost in the first round of the Class B playoffs, they were given an extra life in the loser’s bracket of the double elimination tournament. On Saturday afternoon, only one of those teams would be left standing.
Though Mercy made a run of it late, they fell 3-1, ending their season at Hampton Bays High School.
“They fought to the very end,” Monarchs head coach Rich Schaub said. “I’m very proud of them. It was a great season.”
Coming into the game, Schaub knew it would be a close matchup.
“We knew we split our regular season series and we knew that the way we’ve been playing defense lately it’s going to be tight game,” he said. “It was an evenly matched game and they just got a few more hits than us at the end of the day.”
The Monarchs (9-9) were scoreless until the seventh inning. Just half an inning prior, there was a controversy at home plate. With two outs in the inning, the Baymen batter hit the ball into her face mask and pitcher Isabella Sorgi caught the ball. It was called an out by the home plate umpire but then overturned because after verifying with the field umpire, he did admit he heard two sounds off the bat. Schaub, irate with the overturned call, stormed the field and protested the call. Both athletic directors were brought on the field to determine the outcome.
“I got involved only because the umpire said he changed the call because he heard two sounds,” Schaub said. “I said ‘I’m putting the game under protest’ because you can’t be changing calls because you hear sounds. You either see the call or you don’t.”
It seemed to spring a little life into the Monarch offense as one of the two Mercy seniors, Claire Sullivan, who hit 2-for-3 on the day, ripped a double to right-center with one out to give the Monarchs one last chance. Olivia Valle then knocked her in with an RBI single. But with two runners on and one out, the Monarchs couldn’t get any more on the board as the season came to an end.
Though Micaela Zebroski and Sullivan graduate this year, the majority of the Monarch team is very young and will return next season. They have six freshman on their roster. Both their pitchers, Sorgi and Nicole Gravagna are freshman.
“We’re going to miss our seniors, they provided great leadership this season,” Schaub said. “But with the majority of our team returning, we have a lot to look forward to.”
RiverheadLOCAL photos by Michael Hejmej
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