Baseball can be a funny game with its twist and turns. A ball finding its way through the infield thanks to a quirky bounce. A big play on defense or timely hit can sway the momentum and ultimately, the outcome of the game. Saturday's Section 9, Class C championships game had plenty of drama and big efforts by both sides before the Bombers rallied for a 3-2 victory over the Hawks at Gruner Field in Kingston.Rhinebeck came in to the contest as the bracket's top seed and they played like it all afternoon long. They seemed barely fazed by the Pine Plains baseball legacy that has produced numerous league and sectional championships over the years. This band of Hawks was looking to start something of their own.
Pat Russell, Rhinebeck's starting pitcher, was superb on this afternoon. He kept the potent Bombers bats at bay with an assortment of offerings from different arm angles with with varying speeds. Russell flirted with trouble at different times but his crafty hurling or a great play by his defense stemmed the tide.
The first inning was an example of that when the Bombers had a runner on first base with one out. Mark Flinn rocketed a line drive to right field that Reed Fox snagged and gunned on to first base to complete a double play.
The second inning saw Russell load the bases before fanning two straight hitters before inducing an inning-ending fly ball. The third inning saw the Bombers get two runners on base but catcher Brian Hanson hosed a would-be base stealer to help quell that threat.
The Hawks dented the scoreboard in the bottom of the third inning when Lois Berger roped a single to continue his hot hitting. Reed Fox sacrificed Berger to second with a bunt. Eamon Graziano chopped an infield hit to put runners on the corners for Ben Hoynes. Hoynes slapped a basehit to score Berger and give Rhinebeck the game's first run. Hanson then hammered a pitch but Flinn made the grab and flipped for a force play to end the inning.
Rhinebeck tacked on another run in the fourth inning when Nick Martin led off with a single and advanced to second on a delayed steal. Keenan Farrell then bashed a hard single to centerfield that the outfielder let get under his glove, allowing Martin to scoot home easily.
In the fourth and fifth innings, after living dangerously earlier in the contest, Russell seemed to settle down. He only faced one batter over the minimum during that span. After Russell finished off the Bombers in the fifth frame, Hawks coach Bill Carney elected to go with his ace, Ben Hoynes to try and close it out.
" The plan was for Pat to go three innings and to come back with Ben who has been pitching great," the coach said. " Pat's been great for us all year. We got to the division because Pat shut down Webutuck. Pat was tremendous today."
" Everybody looks at our team and thinks of Ben Hoynes and Tanner Cornacchini and well they should because they have been great players for us all year but we can't get to where we are without Pat and Max Malukoff throwing and the rest of the team. Its a team."
After Hoynes relieved Russell, he quickly induced a lazy fly ball on his first pitch. The next Bombers batter stroked a double before Hoynes had a touch of wildness, walking consecutive hitters. Hoynes, who days earlier had been spectacular against S.S. Seward, saw his pitches staying up in the zone where he was not getting any strike calls.
With the bases loaded, Bombers pinch hitter, Jon Lance, was hit by a pitched ball that had the Rhinebeck coaches and fans questioning the call. Lance appeared to lunge in to the pitch and then attempted to check his swing. The ball appeared to hit either Lance or the bat or both, after conferring for a few moments, the umpires let the play stand making the score 2-1.
Hoynes then reared back and whiffed the next batter before Corey Weaver of Pine Plains got to play the role of spoiler. Hoynes got ahead in the count and threw a nasty pitch on the outside edge of the plate that the lefty-swinging Weaver barely sliced between the line and third baseman Max Malukoff to plate two runs and give the Bombers a 3-2 advantage.
Seth Knickerbocker, the lanky, Pine Plains left-hander with a herky-jerky motion, had made the Rhinebeck bats go silent after the fourth inning. He set down 11 batters in a row before Reed Fox singled in the seventh inning.
Fox scampered to second base with two outs in the bottom of the seventh when the Bombers left him unattended but Knickerbocker got the final batter on an outside curveball for a called third strike to end the game and Rhinebeck's title aspirations.
When asked if staying with Russell even longer had entered in to his thinking, Carney had this to say.
" Do I second guess myself? I really don't. What we needed was a very tough effort from Pat today and we got that. Maybe I made the wrong decision but that was our game plan going in to the game so we didn't deviate from it. Pat was disappointed as he should be. He had a win there and we didn't keep it. Give Pine Plains all the credit in the world. They're a great team and they beat us, we didn't lose it. Its tough but that's the way I would do it again."
Carney said that a core group of these players have become winners in other sports during this season and carried that mentality over in to the baseball campaign.
" We've been trying to turn around the program and, this year, these guys did it," Carney said. " Today they showed that they belong. We played a championship game but just didn't have enough to beat a really good team."
Hoynes finished the game with two singles and a run batted in. Farrell had a single and RBI with Nick Martin, Graziano and Berger adding the other basehits for the Hawks. Russell's pitching line read four strikeouts and two walks over five innings. He scattered four hits, all singles, as well.
" This is one of the toughest losses they've ever had or will ever have because we are not going to lose one like that again because now we know, we've been there," said Carney. " To get to point C, you have to go through point A and point B. We probably skipped A this year and went right to B but we just couldn't hit C. I couldn't be any prouder of them. I'm sure they are disappointed and they should be. I'm disappointed but I'm disappointed that we couldn't keep going, not with the effort and the quality of the game. It was a great game."
