East Hampton Advances to Championship Game

Getting back to a championship game the following year isn’t supposed to be easy, and on Friday it wasn’t for East Hampton.

Locked in a 0-0 pitcher’s duel and without a hit heading into the bottom of the sixth inning, the Bellringers finally found a way to do what they have all season. Win late.

Steve Peltier’s pinch-hit, two-out, two-run double down the left-field line lifted East Hampton (17-4) to a 3-0 victory over visiting North Branford in a Shoreline Conference semifinal to earn a spot in the championship game on Saturday where the Bellringers will defend their title against Cromwell.

“That was a nice win,” coach Scott Wosleger said. “They’re a good team. We’ve had great battles with them over the years. They’re well coached. Great kids. Love competing against them.”

For nearly six full innings Marvin Gorgas of East Hampton and North Branford’s Kyle Johnson matched zeros on the scoreboard, with neither team mounting much of a threat.

Except in the first inning.

With one out and Gorgas, who had been hit by a pitch and then stole two bases, on third, Adam Michaud hit a drive to right only to have Nick Perrelli make a diving catch to rob East Hampton of a run. Little did anyone know at the time that would be as close as either team would come to scoring for the next five innings.

“We hit the ball hard, just right at people,” Gorgas said. “That’s part of baseball. You can’t do anything about that.”

That changed in the sixth.

With one out, Spencer Daly walked and with two out Joe Tuxbury came through with East Hampton’s first hit of the game. Zac Harrington followed that with a walk and the bases were loaded.

Then Wosleger looked to the bench and summoned the sophomore Peltier.

“Coach told me not to worry about anything because it’s a tie game, Peltier said, “so even if I don’t get a hit, it’s not going to matter. Life’s going to go on.”

Peltier made his way to the batter’s box thinking one thing.

“I went up there and we were thinking first-pitch fastball because I’m coming off the bench, and he gave it to me and I hit it,” he said. “It was a great moment.”

East Hampton tacked on another run to lead 3-0 heading into the seventh.

After a leadoff single by Brandon Basil, second baseman Zack Johnson snared a line drive and caught Basil off first for a double play.

“That was a big play. That was huge,” said Gorgas, who got Chris Caron on a groundball for the game’s final out. “Our defense has been phenomenal this year.

“We knew they were a good team. We knew they were going to come ready to play, and we just had to play our game, play our best.”

Credit Gorgas for allowing his teammates the time they needed to break through against Johnson.

North Branford (16-6) had no answer for the sophomore righthander, who allowed three hits and struck out eight. The Thunderbirds had beaten East Hampton both times the two played in the regular season, but Gorgas, the Shoreline Conference Pitcher of the Year, didn’t pitch either game.

“Once we knew it was North Branford, we knew they hadn’t seen him this year, they only saw him last year in the [Shoreline] final when he closed out the game,” Wosleger said. “And we knew they were tired. They’d been playing a lot of baseball the past few days and we knew when they got off the bus and saw his name on the lineup card, they weren’t going to be happy about it.”

This was North Branford’s fourth game in three days. Still, as the innings ticked off the scoreboard, the thought of wasting such a strong performance from Gorgas or the lost opportunity in the first inning could have weighed on the minds of the Bellringers. However, a tight game in the late innings is something they have grown accustomed to this season.

“We were hitting the ball fairly hard at times, so we were hoping we would just break through offensively,” Wosleger said. “Part of it is being smart, being patient and not panicking.”

Johnson allowed two hits and struck out two for North Branford.

Despite not playing well against the Thunderbirds in the previous two games this season, Wosleger didn’t seem concerned heading into the game.

“We felt comfortable all along that we could compete with them,” he said. “We didn’t think we were the underdog in this by any means.”

And they proved it.

“It feels good,” Wosleger said. “We got a good pitching performance, good defense and we were patient enough at the plate where we didn’t get discouraged. We didn’t hang our heads and we kept taking good swings.”

Next up for East Hampton is Cromwell at the Indian River Complex in Clinton at 1 p.m. The Panthers defeated Haddam-Killingworth 3-2 in the other semifinal on Friday in Haddam.

East Hampton and Cromwell met twice this season with the Bellringers winning both times, 2-1 and 3-1.