Baseball Season Ends in Heartbreaker

Fair Lawn baseball coach Jamie Graceffo knows his team exceeded just about everyone’s expectations this year, winning 13 games, including a stunning playoff victory over state-ranked Roxbury in the first round of the state playoffs.

But all the positives aren’t enough to lessen the pain that comes with a season-ending loss, especially one like this.

The Cutters saw their season and playoff run come to an end Friday with an 8-5 extra-inning loss to Union City in the quarterfinals of the NJSIAA North 1, Group IV tournament.

“There’s nobody that expected us to be here, that’s for sure,” Graceffo said of his 13th-seeded team. “That’s a credit to (our seniors) and the effort and leadership that they gave us. I told our underclassmen to remember this feeling. When they want to do nothing during the summer or not be in the weight room, remember how this feels. It’s going to hurt for a couple of days, but it’s real easy to forget and they can’t forget.”

Fair Lawn (13-13-1) found itself on the verge of a second straight road upset in four days when Dan Prigge singled in Bernard Brito to make it 5-4 in the top of the seventh.

But the Cutters would not be able to finish off the resilient lineup of fifth-seeded Union City (19-8). Jose Matias would tie the game on a RBI single with two outs in the seventh to force extra innings.

Fair Lawn would threaten in the eighth, losing the bases before being turned aside when Union City reliever Antonio Borges retired Brito on a come-backer. The clock would strike midnight on the Cutters’ season in bottom half of the frame, when Union City’s Edwin Herrera launched a pitch over the left field fence of Roosevelt Stadium for a three-run walk-off homer.

“For a lot of inning today, we were the better team,” said Graceffo. “Unfortunately, it wasn’t in the first inning or the last inning.”

Trailing 3-0 in the first inning after making a stunning five errors in the field, Fair Lawn would crawl back into the game behind Brito, Erik Lugo and Coby Kerr.

Kerr scored Fair Lawn’s first run in the third on a Lugo double, and the senior would tie the game one inning later with a two-run double to left. On the mound, Kerr settled down after the rough first inning, limiting a dangerous Union City offense to just one run in the next five innings.

“Koby is a machine. He pitches without feelings, and that’s what you have to do,” Graceffo said. “He understands that things are going to happen in a game that he can’t control any of that. His job is to do what he has to do, and he really settled in and was great for us. I wish it worked out better for him.”

Fair Lawn would tie the game for a second when Kerr scored on a Lugo single in the sixth inning.

Kerr was 2-for-3 with two RBI and a walk at the plate. On the mound, he struck out two in a complete-game effort. Lugo was 2-for-5 with two RBI and a stolen base. Brito, a junior, roped three doubles and scored twice in a 3-for-5 afternoon. Prigge was 3-for-4 with a run scored and a RBI.