Garden City Baseball are County Champs!

The number two seeded Garden City Trojans defeated number one seed Calhoun to win the County Championship for the first time since 2006 in front of their home crowd in exciting fashion. No stranger to extra innings, Garden City won the championship with a walk off hit by Peter Halloran after the table was set with a lead-off double off the bat of Francisco Ingrassia that was followed by a perfect sacrifice bunt off the bat of relief pitcher extraordinaire Gabe Beschloss. So, with a runner at third and only one out Calhoun had to draw in both their infield and outfield, but it didn’t matter when Halloran drilled a line drive into right field for the winning hit and the championship.

Game 2 of the best of three series was played at Garden City which gave the home crowd edge to the Trojans as the stands were full, including the GC U12 District Team, and the outfield bleacher creatures were out in full force.

Starting for the Trojans was lefty junior Pat Heber who was coming off a strong hitting performance in game 1. Heber also pitched game two of the MacArthur series and was a hard luck loser as GC couldn’t get their bats going in that game.

Calhoun got off to a fast start as they pieced together a couple of hits in the top of the first plating 2 runs for the early lead. Garden City came back with a run in the bottom of the second as Chris Blum drove a single up the middle to plate Jack Fanning to make it 2-1.

Heber kept the Calhoun hitters off balance through the middle innings, only surrendering a run in the third on a passed ball. That GC got back in the bottom of the inning as Joey Wood came across to make it 3-2. The Trojan hurler had a rough fourth inning but was able to escape with only giving up 3 runs as Calhoun got their bats going for four hits and an error to plate the runs to put them up 6-2.

As they have all year when they needed to, Garden City was able to piece together a big fifth inning to tie the score at six. The key to the inning was the wildness of the Calhoun pitchers. The inning started with Chris Blum getting a free pass on a hit by pitch, a walk to Joe Infante to drive in a run, another hit by pitch of Frank Santeramo for a run, a passed ball to score Wood and a single by Heber to tie the game at six. The Garden City bench and fans erupted with the big inning, putting some smiles back on the determined faces of the Trojans.

Manager Dave Izzo stuck with Heber through the seventh but with a runner on third and two outs he called on freshman Gabe Beschloss who came on and struck out his first batter to end the inning.

The Trojans went 3 and out in the bottom of the seventh to send the game into extra innings. But Beschloss continued his streak of scoreless, and hitless, innings in relief as he only allowed a baserunner to get on via error. He then struck out the next batter to end the inning and set up the exciting bottom of the eight.

With a clean inning and a third Beschloss gets the win but a lot of credit has to go to Heber for sticking with his game plan that handcuffed the Colts when he had to, battling for 6 and 2/3 solid innings keeping the Trojans in the game.

Coaches Izzo and Ray Chaputian have done a tremendous job working with a deep pitching staff, solid defense and timely hitting to bring the County title back to Garden City.

The Trojans will look to add a Long Island Championship to their trophy case, and make it a Happy Father’s Day, when they take on the Suffolk winner of League 2 on Sunday at 11 am at Mitchell Field.