The Oceanside baseball team managed to beat Mother Nature and its peskiest nemesis on the same day.
Senior Luke Villella scattered just two hits over six innings with nine strikeouts and junior Ryan Pender doubled in the tiebreaking run in the sixth as the Sailors handed host Massapequa its first loss of the early season with a 4-2 victory on a rainy evening last Friday.
Finn Rummenie, J.J. Kemmesat and Alex Merejo also drove in runs for Oceanside, which beat the Chiefs for just the third time in 14 tries since the pandemic. The Sailors improved to 3-0 against Conference AAA opponents while dropping Massapequa’s mark to 2-1.
“I think the kids held court the whole way and battled from the first inning to the last,” Sailors coach Mike Postilio. “We had contributions up and down our roster. A lot of kids stepped up, a lot of seniors that got opportunities stepped up, and we want to win every game we play.”
The game was tied at 2-2 when Rummenie led off the sixth inning with a single. Pinch runner Dylan Beirne advanced to second on Ryan Piccola's sacrifice bunt and scored on Pender's double to left two batters later.
Kyle Scheurer again used his legs to help the Sailors score a big insurance run in the seventh. The senior center fielder walked to lead off the frame and stole his second base of the game and eighth in the last three contests before advancing to third when the catcher’s throw went into center field.
Jack Regan walked, and, after a strikeout, Merejo put down a safety squeeze bunt that scored Scheurer to make it 4-2.
Massapequa put two runners on with two outs in the bottom of the seventh, but senior Jake Ducorsky got Thomas Harding to ground into a fielder’s choice for his first save of the season.
Villella only allowed a first-inning single and Thomas Connelly’s game-tying two-run homer in the fourth in his first start of the season.
“To hold them to two hits was a big plus for us,” Postilio said. “Our defense played really well. We turned a double play in the seventh inning, and we executed a safety squeeze, a sacrifice bunt, we made all of our plays. So, on our end, it was great.”
Beirne beat Hicksville on April 8 with a six-inning one-hitter with 12 strikeouts in a 10-0 victory and junior Jack Paul helped Oceanside complete the home-and-home sweep the following day by allowing just two runs on three hits with four strikeouts over five innings.
Scheurer went 4-for-5 with three RBIs and five stolen bases in the latter contest.
“Kyle’s been batting leadoff since he was a freshman,” Postilio said. “He gets on, he loves to run, and he makes it hard on the defense, especially the opposing pitcher.”
The Sailors began last season 8-3 but lost seven of their last nine regular-season games before dropping the deciding third game in their quarterfinal series with Plainview. The schools meet again in a home-and-home series this week.
