West Islip Baseball Eliminates Hills West

The result of the Class AA baseball playoff matchup between Hills West and West Islip? Let's just say there's no consolation for the Colts. The Lions went on the road yet again, defeating West 8-6 in the consolation bracket to advance to the next round against Hauppauge on Friday.

Hills had their chances in the later innings, loading the bases with nobody out in the sixth, down 6-5. Lions reliever Craig Kelly got two fly balls and a strikeout to get out of the jam. In the seventh, same story, only now it was 8-5. Brian Altschuler came in out of the bullpen, and gave up an infield hit to Gibron Gurayah, loading them up.

Strikeout, run-scoring groundout, ground ball to the pitcher. Tying runs left on base, season over for the Colts.

"I don't know how frustrating it can be when you leave six men on base with no outs in the last two innings; you just don't deserve to win," Colts coach Tom Migliozzi said.

West Islip actually left 12 men on base against the Colts' 11, but they cashed in more than the home team. Tyler Bell singled home Chris Anderson to break the 5-5 tie in the sixth, and after a throwing error plated another in the seventh, it was Bell again, driving in Joe Valentine to make it 8-5.

"The seniors have led us all year, we're a very young team and they've taken the kids under their wing," Lions coach Shawn Rush said of Bell and his bullpen. "I said you know what, if we're going to go down, we're going to go down with these guys."

Junior DH Rob Pescitelli shined early for West Islip. His second inning triple set up his team's first run, and his two-run home run the next inning made it 4-1 Lions.

"It was an 0-1 count, I was looking outside and he threw the fastball inside, a little low, and I just golfed it out," Pescitelli said.

The Colts rallied to tie it in the fifth, as a throwing error scored one, and a Matt Cabezon sac fly added another. Dylan Mouzakes walked to bring home the tying run, but Kelly got David Golinowski to ground out with the bases juiced in a preview of his escape act the next inning.

Neither starting pitcher, Hills' Luke Stampfl and Islip's Dan Jagiello, would factor in the decision, as high pitch counts and a combined 11 walks took them out of the game, a near-three hour affair.

"The strike zone was very small, so we had to groove a lot of pitches that we don't normally do, so [Islip] got some opportunities to swing the bat," Migliozzi said.

The Colts' coach also wasn't thrilled with being denied a run in the third, which he thought crossed home before Stampfl was tagged out in a rundown. Migliozzi thought the umpire was out of position, but again, there would be other missed opportunities, men in blue or not.

"They're a bunch of good kids, [but] in the playoffs the mistakes are multiplied ...when you get to the end of the season, you can't make too many mistakes," Migliozzi said of his team.

As for West Islip, it's on to the next round in Hauppauge, and once again, there's no margin for error in the double elimination tourney.

"We've been saying, even after the loss to Sachem North in the first round, just one game at a time," Rush said. "In order to advance, you've got to win what's in front of you, you can't look ahead to what may happen, we have to look ahead at what is going on, and that's tomorrow."