On May 19, the Rye Neck baseball team scored an 8-4 victory over Blind Brook to add to its already impressive win total on the year. At 9-2, the Panthers appear to be a serious threat to make a deep run in the upcoming playoffs, but head coach Joe Carlucci says that there is still much work to be done.
On Wednesday, the Panthers were led by an impressive performance on the mound from Ryan Abbey, who tossed six innings of one-run baseball, fanning seven Trojans on the afternoon. Abbey demonstrated the ability to extricate himself from jams, including one in the fourth inning which saw him induce a double play ground ball with the bases loaded in order to preserve what was, at that point, a 2-1 Rye Neck lead.
“Ryan’s been great for us, both as a starter and a reliever and he never gets worried; he just focuses on making the next pitch,” Carlucci said. “He did that and then Alex [Saltus] and Evan [Janowitz] turned a nice double play to get us out of it.”
The Panthers responded in the bottom half of the inning, tacking on five more runs, two of which were plated on a single through the box by catcher Jake Ledonne.
“We had had guys on in the early innings and we’d been hitting fairly well all year,” Carlucci said. “But I have to give their pitcher credit, we were unable to come up with the big hits until that inning.”
Rye Neck’s performance through the first 11 games of the season has been a pleasant surprise, Carlucci said. Although he knew that the Panthers had plenty of returning talent, he also admitted that the team’s schedule saw them squaring off against some of the tougher squads in the area.
“We expected to be a good team, we expected to be competitive, but given how difficult our league is, I don’t think anyone would have said we would get out to a 9-2 start,” he said. “So to have nine wins with that kind of schedule says a lot.”
The Panthers’ regular season will run through May 28 and their final five games before the upcoming Class B single-elimination tournament will see them take on some tough squads, including Pleasantville.
“Right now, we’re not really thinking ahead to the playoffs, we just have to get through the season,” Carlucci said. “Certainly our bunting needs to get better, along with our situational hitting, and we’ve had a few pitchers struggling, so we’d like to get them back on track.”
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