Merrick Drops First Game in Williamsport Tournament

You can't win 'em all.

After cruising through the first three games of the district playoffs, the Merrick 12-year-old Williamsport team took the field last night at Burns Park attempting to win the district championship against Massapequa Coast.

However, the Merrick boys quickly realized that it wouldn't be easy.

A four-run fourth inning broke the game open for Massapequa, and they rode that big inning to victory, 6-2. Fortunately for Merrick, it was only their first loss of the tournament, and the two teams will play again Friday at 8 p.m. at Burns Park to determine the district champion.

According to coach Bob Pizzimenti, a game like this is standard procedure for Merrick.

"Our team has done this ever year where we have a loss that is disappointing," he said. "And we always bounce back. So we're looking forward to that."

Josh Duren started the game for Merrick, and although he struck out 11 batters, he was plagued by two big innings in which Massapequa collected their six runs.

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 their first 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.

Merrick finally broke through in the second inning. After singles by 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.

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.

"Josh was pitching a great game," Pizzimenti said. "But he threw a change up in a situation where he shouldn't have, and that started the rally. But they hit the ball, played a good baseball game and they deserved to win."

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.

"We need to play a lot better than we did today," Pusateri said. "And we have to hit the ball. But we have our ace [Jonah Zeitlin] tomorrow and he's never lost a game. So we feel very confident."