North Babylon had a strong season last year, but Coach Steve Corrado noted that they hurt themselves with their failure to secure more series sweeps, which impacted their playoff seeding.
So far, so good.
The Bulldogs pulled off the series sweep against a difficult Hills East team on Friday afternoon in the final day of March. They had won the first game, 1-0, on a walk-off single in the eighth inning. Chris Stumpf earned the win in relief. They won Game 2, 4-2, behind a strong pitching performance by Dennis Kelly with Stumpf notching the save. He started and earned the W today – working around plenty of traffic on the bases but also making the big pitches when he needed to.
His final pitching line was 4 innings, 7 hits, 3 ER, 3 BB and 2 Ks. He was relieved by Ariel Nunez who pitched the final 3 innings in relief.
The game was put out of reach by North Babylon in the fourth inning, prior to that it had the makings of a back-and-forth thriller despite the poor weather.
The Bulldogs jumped out to a quick 3-0 lead, as they took advantage of command issues by Hills East’s starting pitcher, Mason Kappell. Stumpf singled to lead off the game. Isaiah Gutierrez and Eric Schulteisz were hit by pitches to load the bases. Hayden Magliano ripped a two-run double to left center field to make it 2-0 before you could blink. Dennis Kelly reached on an error by the third baseman to make it 3-0. After a strikeout and a bloop single by Jordan Konig, Kappell got a strikeout and an infield pop to end the inning.
Hills East got one back right away, as leadoff batter Joey Castro showed his wheels with a perfectly placed bunt that was thrown away so he advanced to second. Connor Bunce drew a walk and Aubrey Jean-Louis scored Castro with a ground out to second to make it 3-1.
In the top half of the second, North Babylon went back to work. Stumpf ripped his second hit in as many innings, and he scored on Schulteisz’s double to right field to make it 4-1. After an error by the third baseman, Dennis Kelly drove in the fifth run of the game with an RBI ground out.
Just when it appeared it make get out of hand, Hills East was able to bounce back and get a single by Luke Villa, a walk and a HBP to load the bases for Connor Bunce. The shortstop ripped a two-run single to left field to make it 5-3. It looked like we were in store for a true shootout.
The Bulldogs were able to respond quickly. After the first batter was retired, the next two batters reached on errors and Stumpf walked to load the bases and Hills East went to the bullpen, calling on David Harris. The senior walked Gutierrez to bring in a run and the next batter, Eric Schulteisz, grounded out to shortstop to bring home another run and make it 7-3.
In the home half of the fourth, Stumpf got Jean-Louis to ground out to second base to start the inning, but Jake Strow singled to right. After a strikeout, Luke Villa ripped an RBI single to make it 7-4.
That was as close as they’d get.
North Babylon had another crooked number in the fourth inning, they got a one-out walk by Jake Miele, single by Konig and single by Kirincic to load the bases for Tristan Garcia. He ripped a two-run single up the middle to give the Bulldogs further breathing room and make it a 9-4 lead.
Stumpf ran into a little trouble in the fourth, allowing a single to Castro and a walk to Jackson Pam before Jean-Louis ripped a single to right but a perfect throw from Garcia nailed Castro at the plate to end the threat. It certainly seemed like that was a big moment with Hills East running out of chances to comeback.
North Babylon posted a huge inning in the fifth – scoring four more runs thanks to an RBI single by Miele, a pair of wild pitches and a bases loaded walk. That was essentially all she wrote after that.
Eric Schultesz said after the game that the team missed some chances to sweep teams last season and it was important to get the job done.
They will face Copiague next week as they look to stay hot and hopefully reach the postseason this season.
