Massapequa Coast Goes For District Championship

The Massapequa Coast Little League will play for the district title Friday night in the Williamsport Tournament.

The team of twelve-year-olds earned a berth in the final game by defeating Merrick 6-2, Thursday. It was Merrick's first loss in the tournament and the two teams will square off again once more in the final, set for 8 p.m. at Burns Park.

Tyler Ruth, the starter for Massapequa, pitched five and a third dominant innings, allowing just one run and striking out six.

"In the first few innings I felt somewhat intimidated," Ruth said. "But when we scored a few runs I thought, 'Wow we can win this game,' so that pumped me up at the end."

After a scoreless first inning, Merrick had a chance to score in the bottom of the second. Eric Pauly hit a leadoff double, and then advanced to third on a ground out by Frank Pusateri.

But Ruth would get Josh Schuit to ground out, and then struck out Logan Eisner to end the threat.

But Merrick did break  through in the second inning. After singles by starting pitcher Josh Duren and James Ferry, Mike Schwartz stepped to the plate with one out.

Schwartz hit a ground ball to the first basemen, who stepped on first to get the second out and threw home and appeared to have gotten Jonah Zeitlin (who entered the game as a special pinch runner for Duren) out, but the umpire ruled that the catcher bobbled the ball and Zeitlin was declared safe.

The run gave Merrick a 1-0 lead, but it would not last long as Massapequa broke the game open with a four run fourth inning.

After a single by Nick Armento and a walk by Ruth, Massapequa had runners on second and third with two outs. Ryan Warner followed with a single to right field to even the score.

And they weren't done there. Conor Brennan dropped a perfectly placed bunt single to score another run, and then Noah Lorenzo broke the game open with a base-clearing double to make it 4-1.

Massapequa got one more big hit in the top of the sixth when Matt Caminiti drove a two-RBI single to right field to score two runs and extend the lead to 6-1.

"The big thing was pitching," Massapequa coach Vinny Camarda said. "Our pitching was superb and we only gave up one earned run. Our kids started to gain confidence as the game went on, and they ended up scoring a few runs for us."

Merrick put up one more fight in the bottom of the sixth. They got two runners on after a single by Pauly and a walk by Pusateri, and then Schwartz drove in a run with an RBI ground out. But it was too little and too late as the next batter, Eisner, struck out to end the game.

Duren struck out 11 batters in a losing effort.