Sports

Longwood's Late Inning Magic Pushes North to Loser's Bracket of Class AA Baseball Playoffs

Teams exchange homers, Lions get key hits in bottom of the seventh.

To be one strike away from beating the second-seeded team in the Suffolk County Class AA baseball tournament is impressive.

Then Longwood showed why its seeded so high when Mario Parisi hit a walk-off two-run single, beating Sachem North, 7-6, in the second round of the playoffs Monday afternoon at the home of the Lions in Middle Island.

Seventh-seeded Sachem drops to the loser's bracket of the tournament and will play the loser of Monday's Smithtown West-West Babylon game Tuesday at 4 p.m. Longwood will host Hills West or Centereach Wednesday.

Find out what's happening in Sachemwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

"We knew they were going to score runs with their bats," said Sachem head coach Tom Gambino. "We knew it wasn't going to be a 1-0 game."

North held a 1-0 lead in the first inning after Dan D'Orazio singled in Alec Sole.

Find out what's happening in Sachemwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

In the fifth, Mike Turo hit a sacrifice fly and D'Orazio singled again, this time to right field, and Sachem led 3-0.

Longwood came to life in the sixth inning when Tom Scala hit a solo-shot to the deepest part of the ball park, directly over the center field wall about 375 feet away. Parisi answered that blast with a two-run homer to tie the score three batters later.

Sachem broke open the 3-3 tie when Brendan Garry hit a three-run homer in the top of the seventh, giving the Arrows a 6-3 lead heading into the final stretch of the game.

"It would have been the biggest hit of the year if we won," Gambino said.

Sole, who pitched six innings, struck out five and went 3-for-4, hit Scala with a pitch in the top of the seventh. Longwood followed with two singles and Gambino replaced Sole with Vin Peluso, who hit a batter, allowed a sacrifice fly and Parisi's final blow.

"We had a big hit at the end, they had a big hit at the end, we just couldn't get through the late inning," Gambino said. "We were one strike away. We live another day and see what happens tomorrow. We have to go out and play defense again, throw strikes and hopefully come up with a win."


Get more local news delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for free Patch newsletters and alerts.

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here