Islip Baseball: Lucky And Good
I'm not trying to take anything away from what Islip accomplished in winning the Long Island Class A baseball championship. The Buccaneers scored a 7-2 comeback win over Island Trees, and overcame the emotional shock of seeing a teammate carted away in an ambulance.
But as anyone who saw the game knows, the old adage -- it's better to be lucky than good -- was certainly true here.
Island Trees cruised into the sixth with a 2-0 lead. With one batter already retired, Island Trees catcher Paul Delgiacco let a strike three get away from him and his throw to first was high. So instead of a second out, Islip batter Joe Seymour reached base safely.
The next batter, Rob Rogers, hit a grounder to shortstop Bobby Colleluori. Double play to end the inning, right? The ball took a wicked hop and hit Colleluori in the chest and bounded away. And as Island Trees coach Joe D'Auria admitted afterward, his team unraveled from there.
OK, so Islip should have never scored four runs in the sixth. What about the three-run seventh? All three runs came home -- with two out -- when rightfielder Shaun Rutherford dropped the ball.
No doubt you could chalk up all those miscuse to the conditions. A steady rain began falling in the first inning and never let up.
But as I said, a very good Islip team was also very lucky on this day.