Baseball

Boys in blue beat Renegades for second Teeners’ title in past three years

By RICHARD A. ROSS

NARRROWSBURG, NY — “Are you going to write a long, great story about us?” asked Tusten Chiefs veteran Mike O’Reilly. The question was posed before his team took to their home field to, hopefully, close out the ReMax Renegades in this year’s Wayne County Babe Ruth Teener’s League championships.

O’Reilly remembers the last sterling tale told two years ago, when he was a youngster on the Chiefs team that beat the Honesdale Eagles 9-4 in the final game to clinch the only Wayne County Teeners’ title by a New York team in the recent era. It was the first title for manager Joe Curreri and it was a big story, indeed. Current teammates Mike Pierce, Cody Fredo and Jeremy DeGori were on that winning team, too.

The answer to O’Reilly’s question was quite simple. “You guys play the game and the story will flow from there.”

And what a story this year’s final game turned out to be.

After beating the Renegades 4-2 the night before behind the pitching of Cody Fredo and Pierce, and timely RBIs from Lucas Bauer, Fredo and O’Reilly, the Chiefs were only one win away from doing something they had never accomplished, namely beating the Renegades in the finals.

Last year, the Renegades ousted the Chiefs 8-4 in the one-game semifinal. The Chiefs had played the Renegades in the finals years ago but never topped them in this round of the playoffs.

With the sky threatening rain, time was of the essence. To have a game become official, the visiting team would have to get its at-bats in the fifth inning. For the Chiefs, the prospect of having to play a third game on a neutral field the next night was not appealing in the least. They wanted to get a lead and hoped they could hold it through five innings should the rain arrive.

Renegades manager Bill Phillips sent ace Wyatt Davis to the hill, while Curreri elected to start Pierce and, hopefully, get three innings from the hard-throwing righty before going to Fredo to close out the matter.

The two teams had split their regular season games and the Chiefs remembered the Renegades starter all too well. Davis had thrown a one-hitter at them in Cooperstown. For their part, the Chiefs had bested their teal-jerseyed rivals 3-2 on the Renegades’ home field.

Pierce walked leadoff batter Shawn Beals, who promptly got to third on an errant throw. Pierce made sure Beals got no further by inducing a ground out to the mound and fanning the next two batters.

In the bottom of the first, the hungry Chiefs jumped on Davis. O’Reilly, who has expressed interest in becoming a sportswriter someday, began to pen the Chief’s glorious tale with a single. He promptly stole second and came home on Jeremy DeGori’s double. The Chiefs got a second run on a RBI single by Ryan Alsdorf to take an early 2-0 lead.

Pierce had logged quite a few innings in the week prior to this game, so his durability was in question from the get-go. The Chiefs’ road to the finals had included a 3-0 win over Waymart, with Patrick Ripa starting and Alsdorf closing, and a 6-0 win over the Eagles, in which the Chiefs had scored four runs in the first inning.

Pierce’s fatigue began to show in the second inning, as he yielded one-out singles to John Martin and Ryan O’Keefe. A stolen base had runners at the corners when Curreri decided that Pierce had given all he could.

Ripa came on and struck out Eric Hicks on three pitches and then induced a grounder to the mound from Dave Iacavino to end the inning.

In the bottom of the second, the Chiefs went on the warpath as they scored five runs, driving Davis and Beals from the mound before John Lang came on to hurl the rest of the way. Bauer led off the inning with a single and stole second. Ripa walked. Justin Zaccari hit a long ball to center, which should have loaded the bases, but Bauer was called out at third on a great throw from the outfield. But that hiccough would prove to be a slight one.

Fredo doubled in two runs to make it 4-0. That chased Davis, and Beals promptly walked O’Reilly. Steals put runners on second and third, and DeGori’s single brought in both runners. A subsequent walk to Pierce and a successful bunt by Alsdorf plated the fifth run of the inning as the Chiefs were whoopin’ loud and winning big with a 7-0 lead as the skies began to seriously darken.

To have the game washed out at this point would be tragic for the Chiefs, so Curreri decided to hasten things along once the inning ended.

Ripa continued his mound mastery in the third and fourth innings as he retired six straight batters. Meanwhile, Curreri looked for his team to make quick outs and make it to the fifth with the lead before the ensuing downpour. A single by O’Reilly and a throwing error got him to third. He was eventually vehemently tagged out on a rundown between third and home.

After Ripa retired the Renegades in the top of the fourth, the Chiefs’ attempt to quickly get through their fourth was slowed by a walk to DeGori and Cole Fredo’s being hit by a pitch. Even a bunt by E.J. Franskevicz, which should have ended the inning, resulted in the Chiefs’ eighth run as DeGori scored.

The Renegades tried to rally in the top of the fifth as Martin and O’Keefe hit back-to-back singles off of Ripa. Curreri brought in Cody Fredo and that was the end of that. He threw nine straight strikes and fanned the next six batters to make the game official. It would be a fitting end to the 15-year-old’s career with the Chiefs.

A 10-run rule was in effect after five innings, so the Chiefs would only need two more runs to close the deal. With two outs, singles by DeGori and Pierce had runners on the corners when Alsdorf hit a single in the gap that drove in both runners for the electrifying 10-0 win.

The victorious Chiefs limited their celebration to the pouring of a lone bottle of sparkling water over the head of Curreri and O’Reilly (who poured it on his own head). Two years ago, when current Sullivan West standouts Brad Reimer and Logan Grishaber helped pitch the Chiefs to victory, the celebration was far more demonstrative.

The Chiefs completed their season at 15-4, while the number-one seeded Renegades, who had bested the Hawley A’s in the semifinals 1-0, suffered their fourth loss of the season against 14 wins. The chiefs were sponsored by the Narrowsburg Fire Department and the Tusten Lions.

Visit riverreportersports.com for an album of game photos.