Baseball Class D Sectionals

An opportunity missed

Eldred fails to capitalize on gateway to a sectional title

By RICHARD A. ROSS

HURLEY, NY — For Eldred coach Frank Kean, the planets were aligned for a storybook ending to the Yellowjackets’ season. First, Chapel Field, a team that Eldred split with during the season, upset Class D heavyweight four-time defending champ S.S. Seward 10-9 after Seward blew a 7-0 lead at home. Eldred beat Chapel Field at home this season behind an 11-strikeout gem by ace Mike Prunka. The Lions came back and beat Eldred by the same score in Pine Bush as Eldred stranded a spate of runners and succumbed to the great pickoff move of lefty pitcher Daryl Gros.

Kean knew he could contend with Chapel Field but first he would have to get by top-seeded John A. Coleman Catholic (13-8). In sectional play you have to advance, so you can’t save your best pitcher for the finals. Kean sent Prunka to the mound on six days rest hoping to get his ace the lead. Prunka had that lead three times and still couldn’t hold it as Coleman scored a pair of runs in the bottom of the eighth inning to defeat Eldred (4-13) 6-5.

It’s a complicated story and it’s no doubt a game that Kean will remember as one of the most frustrating losses of his long and illustrious career. The field conditions were so miserable due to the rain that Prunka called Kean to the mound in the first inning to point out a huge hole. After a dispute with the umpire, who wanted to charge Kean with a trip to the mound, the hole was filled in, but the powerful righty never seemed comfortable from the hill.

The game seesawed back and forth and errors abounded on both sides. Prunka and Coleman’s Ryan Johnson hooked up in a lengthy duel of nerves and stamina. Eldred took a 1-0 lead in the third but Coleman forged ahead 2-1 in the bottom of the fourth. Eldred came back with three runs, only one of which was earned in the top of the fourth. But Prunka seemed to tire and gave the lead back 5-4 in the bottom of the frame. A pair of infield errors, a problem that has plagued Eldred all season long, fueled that lead. Eldred tied the game up at 5-5 and it stayed that way until the eighth inning when Prunka hit a double down the left field line scoring Tony VanZanten. All Prunka had to do was close the door and Eldred would be in the Sectional finals but alas, the dominant ace had little left in the tank.

Coleman led off the eighth with a single and the runner advanced to second on a mishandled grounder. Prunka walked the next batter. A sacrifice bunt moved the runners up to second and third. A fielder’s choice brought the tying run home but a delayed throw to home by VanZanten at second allowed the game-winning run to score on a hit by Matt King, who notched his third RBI of the afternoon.

Summing it up, Kean said, “When you have the game in your hand three times and your ace on the mound, you expect to win.”

Baseball, it seems, is a game of unrealized expectations.

Coleman lost to Chapel Field 3-2 as the Lions recorded their first ever Section Nine Class D championship.

For Kean and his Eldred Yellowjackets, seeing the Lions crowned champions will continue to leave them thinking about what might have been.