Sportika Gallagher had to fend off a late rally by De Mortagne, a Montreal-based program, on its way to a 6-5 victory in eight innings procured via the always entertaining but ill-desired International Tiebreaker rule.
Sam Aslansan slammed the second pitch of the bottom of the eighth inning off the right field wall to score Matt Tannenbaum from third base with the winning run and enable Sportika to advance to the 17U Garden State Invitational Wood Bat semifinals. Lefthander Joe Krause had escaped in the top of the eighth inning after facing the always pressure-packed bases-loaded, one-out situation under the tiebreaker rule.
Krause, a rising senior at Old Bridge High, couldn’t have looked more comfortable, striking out the only two batters he would face, one on a 3-2 fastball, the other on a 2-2 curveball, to extricate Sportika from the threat. Aslansan then went about putting a quick end to the seesaw contest.
“I’ve played baseball my whole life, so I’ve been in those situations plenty of times,” said Aslansan, a rising senior at Chestnut Hill Academy in Philadelphia. “One of our guys said their pitcher’s fastball was straight, so I was just sitting fastball.”
Aslansan got a fastball up and out of the strike zone on the first pitch from De Mortagne righthander Thomas Sansregret, taking it for a ball. “The second one was a fastball, too, and it was right there,” he said. Aslansan took the pitch the other way and, with the outfield drawn in, it wouldn’t have mattered where it landed at that point, but it hit the right field wall on a fly for a very long walk-off single.
Sportika was sitting in the catbird seat heading into the top of the seventh after David Melfi delivered a clutch two-out, two-run single through the left side to extend a one-run lead to 5-2 in the bottom of the sixth. But De Mortagne seemed intent on making its 12-hour round trip drive from Canada a special one when it struck for three runs in the top of the seventh to tie the game at 5-5.
De Mortagne had four big hits in the seventh and took full advantage of a pair of errors by Sportika. Samuel Moreira ignited the rally with a routine ground ball to second base that was misplayed. Leadoff batter Hank Griffin (2-for-3, 3 RBI) then singled hard to center fielder and, suddenly, De Mortagne had the tying run at the plate. Sansregret hit into a force-out at second but Alexandre Lapointe brought the first run home with a hard single to right field.
Esteban St. Pierre then hit a bouncer back to the mound that looked like a possible game-ending double play, but the pitcher’s throw to second was wide and drew the shortstop off the bag. Jacob Bouchard, De Mortagne’s talented third baseman, then ripped a single to center field that scored Sansregret and Lapointe to tie the game at 5-5.
“The worst thing to do in that spot is to get down on yourself,” said Aslansan. “We just had to get those last two outs and we still had the bottom of the seventh.”
Reliever Lance DeSantis did retire the next two De Mortagne batters to keep the score tied before Krause kept the Canadian team scoreless in the eighth and Aslansan played hero in the bottom of the inning.
“Just one swing in the tiebreaker can beat you,” said Sportika coach Tom McCarthy. “Krause was huge with those two strikeouts to keep runs off the board.”
The teams took turns grabbing the lead in the third and fourth innings.
Sportika got on the board first when Tannenbaum tagged and scored from third on Adrian Jimenez’s deep fly to left field. Tannenbaum had led off the inning with a single to center, moved to second on Scott Wierciszewski’s single and advanced to third on a walk to Connor Keenan. De Mortagne got out of the further trouble, however, on a pretty 6-4-3 double play started by Griffin.
De Mortagne answered Sportika’s run immediately with two of its own in the top of the fourth. Sansregret led off with a single and steamed into third base when Lapointe rocked a shot off the right field wall for a double. Bouchard brought Sansregret home with a grounder to the left side and Ludovic Messier followed with a single into left-center field that scored Lapointe and gave De Mortagne its first lead, 2-1.
But Sportika Gallagher came right back with two run in the bottom of the fourth to retake the lead, 3-2. Melfi followed a walk to Bryce Mangene and Reece Horneck’s single with an RBI single through the right side to tie the game at 2-2. Sportika then pulled off a double steal to get Horneck home from third and take the lead, 3-2.
Sportika (5-0) advanced to face PS2 Academy Elite in the semifinals immediately after its victory over De Montagne. The winner of that semifinal will oppose the Diamond Jacks Super 17 (6-0) in the championship game on Friday at 12:15 p.m.
De Mortagne, meanwhile, was headed back to Canada after a positive experience at Diamond Nation. The Canadian team went 3-2 in just missing a berth in the Garden State semifinals and outscored its five opponents 37-16.
“It was a very good experience here,” said De Mortagne’s head coach Michael Belanger. “We would surely come back.” His team was certainly highly competitive in a deep Garden State field.