On June 12, the Rye Neck baseball team put the finishing touches on a splendid season, topping Bronxville 6-2 on the road to win the Section I Class B championship. For a Panthers’ club that had been tested often during the year, unseating the top-seeded Broncos was simply another chance for the No. 3 team to showcase their ability to produce wins in tough situations.
Squaring off against Broncos’ ace Spencer Dessart, the deep Rye Neck lineup flourished, as a two-run, fourth inning single by Sam Dalsimer helped the Panthers jump out to a three-run lead before Bronxville was able to plate its first run. According to Panther head coach Joe Carlucci, Rye Neck had done a terrific job all season against other team’s top hurlers.
“Our league has a lot of very good pitchers, and more often than not, we were able to beat those guys during the year,” he said. “[Dessart] throws pretty hard but he also has good breaking stuff, so our plan was just to be aggressive early in the count and attack his fastball, and we were able to do that.”
Jack Edwards got the start on the mound for Rye Neck and pitched four scoreless innings before being removed for Ben D’Amico. The Broncos scratched out two runs in the frame before the visitors responded in the sixth with three more runs, two coming on a two-out, two-run single by Max Saltus.
According to Carlucci, pitching depth—which had been a strength for the team all year—was again the trump card, despite a Panther postseason run that saw the team forced to play three games in four days.
“We were able to set up our pitching and put ourselves in a position to win,” Carlucci said. “We had four different guys start postseason games, and we had Ben come in and do a great job on Saturday against Bronxville.”
With the win, Rye Neck finished the season with an 18-4 record and claimed its first Section I title since 2014. But while Carlucci said that it was his team’s 6-3 victory over Briarcliff in the last week of the regular season that galvanized his group, his players exhibited a little more confidence throughout the year.
“Our win against Briarcliff, the last one of the season, was a big one because traditionally they’re the east team in Class B,” he said. “But I think our kids believed in themselves a little bit earlier than that.”
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