Two days after edging Rye on a walk-off home run in extra innings, Mamaroneck managed to best the Garnets in dramatic fashion once again on May 12, rallying for five runs in the top of the seventh inning to record a come-from-behind win. For the Tigers, the 7-5 victory accounted for the team’s eighth win of the year; for Rye, two good showings against the Class AA power this week solidified the Garnets’ position as one of the top contenders in the Class A playoff picture.
With two men on and a 3-2 lead in the seventh inning, Rye reliever Derek Woods induced a double play on a popped up bunt to put the Garnets just one out away from victory. But once again, the Tigers proved their crunch-time mettle, rattling off four more hits with two outs to take a 7-3 lead.
Alex Boswell drove in the tying run before Zach Kringdon—who clubbed the game-winning homer on Monday—came up with another big hit, plating the go-ahead run on a single before eventually coming around to score himself.
“The [walk-off homer] really fired me up for today,” Kringdon said. “But I knew I just had to focus, bear down, and concentrate on putting the ball in play, which is what I did.”
Rye had its own chance to author a dramatic walk-off moment in the bottom half of the inning, scratching out two runs against Ryan McIntyre—the third reliever used by Mamaroneck in support of a 4.1-inning, seven-strikeout start by Bijan Anvar—before McIntyre was able to slam the door shut with a bases loaded strikeout of Jack Margiloff.
“I just went out there and told [McIntyre] to calm down,” Kringdon said. “He knows he throws hard enough to get them out, so we just stuck with the fastball because the curveball wasn’t really working.”
Despite dropping back-to-back games against the Tigers, Rye head coach Mike Bruno was pleased with the effort he saw from his ballclub this week and said that the Garnets acquitted themselves quite well against a large-school teams that may well be the best in Section I.
“You look at [Mamaroneck’s] approaches at the plate and you just don’t see that from a lot of teams at this level,” Bruno said. “But we were right there with them this week, in a position to win both games, but we just couldn’t come up with the big hits like they did.”
The Garnets will look to bounce back from the two losses to Mamaroneck when they travel to Ardsley on May 14 to take on the Panthers. Bruno said that he hopes that the two-game set will be a teachable moment.
“We are always learning and we always want to play against the best teams,” Bruno said. “So when [Mamaroneck coach Mike Chiapparelli] called and asked if we wanted to play two games this year, I said ‘of course.’”
Meanwhile, the Tigers will look to continue their undefeated start to the season with a May 15 tilt against Dobbs Ferry.
“We know everyone is really hyped to play us,” Kringdon said. “So we just have to focus.”
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