Baseball
North, East upset; Sweet Home bows out in prequarters
by PATRICK J. NAGY Reporter

prequarterfinal road loss on Thursday, May 24. Photo by Patrick McPartland Purchase color photos at www.BeeNews.com

The top two seeds in Class AA and A baseball are out of the Section VI Tournament.

The Spartans, seeded first in Class AA, and who had beaten their quarterfinal opponent, eighth-seed Orchard Park, 21-14, and 11-4, in back-to-back games during the regular season, were pounded by the Quakers, 14-4, at home on Friday, May 25. The same day, Williamsville East, the No. 1 seed in Class A, lost, 14-13, at home to 16th-seed Lewiston Porter.

North scored a run in the first inning (Taylor Gahagen by Alex Calderon single) but trailed 7-1 after the second inning.

The Spartans added three runs in the fourth. Gahagen doubled in Pat Dwyer and Austin Benschadle and Gahagen scored on a John Ticco sacrifice fly.

North left 12 runners on base throughout the game. Max Zimmerman was 3 for 4 with three singles.

OP pitcher Tim Klein allowed eight hits and two earned runs to record the win on the mound.

"We just didn't play well and OP had hot bats," said North coach Jerry Scarcella.

North, ECIC Division I champions, finishes 17-6 and loses 13 seniors, eight of which were starters.

"We had a good season," said Scarcella. "The kids played well for the most part. We have a good JV team coming up (18-3 this year) who should help us next year."

Lew-Port led East, 14-9, in the bottom of the seventh before the Flames answered with four runs of their own, two runs coming by a home run from Eric Charlton.

East coach Jerry Gasz said Lew-Port outhit his team, 17-14. Jared Flock singled, doubled, and hit a two-run home run for Lew-Port.

Nick Kanutsu (.487) had three hits and scored three times for East. Mark Guenther chipped in two singles, a two-run home run, and scored three times. Chris Schiumo also had three hits, including a three-RBI double. Gary Styn (.533) scored three times and contributed two hits.

The loss snaps East's 11-game winning streak. It's the second straight year East (18-5) has bowed out in the prequarterfinals. Last year, they lost 4-1 to Tonawanda.

The Flames ended the regular season with an 8-5 win over Sweet Home on Tuesday, May 22. Kanutsu pitched the first five innings and was credited with the win. He allowed three runs in the first inning on five hits and yielded only two hits over the next four innings, striking out five. Justin Andreozzi and Zach Miller pitched the last two innings.

Mike Zeoli paced East's nine-hit attack with a single and double, knocking in two runs, and scored twice.

Zeoli, Miller, Kyle Smith, Mike Terryberry, Andreozzi, Kanutsu, Matt Graci, Charlton, and Mike Ferguson are seniors. Several of those players were in the state tournament two years ago.

Sweet Home scored three runs in the first inning on a two-RBI single by Ryan Maxwell and a RBI single by Corey Sykes. The Panthers added a run in the sixth (Mike Wolcott single scored Brian Pappagallo) and another in the seventh (Aaron Klein walked, scored on Craig Young fielder's choice).

Sweet Home finished with eight hits. Ryan Gutt was 2 for 2.

Casey Kacz and Wolcott held East to no runs over the final four innings.

Sweet Home

The Panthers are another Town of Amherst team that was shown the door in postseason competition. Sweet Home, seeded twelfth in the AA tournament, lost 5-2 against fifth-seed Lancaster on Thursday, May 24.

Sweet Home was outhit 6-3 and scored both of their runs in the seventh. Pappagallo doubled in Travis Denman and Maxwell and Sykes singled in Pappagallo.

The Redskins' Ken Murphy threw a complete game three-hitter with four strikeouts and had two RBIs at the plate.

After allowing three runs and three hits and walking two batters in the first, Denman settled down and allowed three base hits the rest of the game.

Gutt singled for Sweet Home's third hit.

Sweet Home finishes 2-18 and loses seniors Maxwell, Sykes, Alex Esposito, Rob Kurzdorfer, and Derek Wiser.

"I thought the last two weeks we played pretty good baseball," said Sweet Home coach Derek Zgoda. "I was happy with our effort against Lancaster. We came ready to play and just fell short."

e-mail: pnagy@beenews.com