Hamptons Collegiate Baseball

The buzz behind Hamptons Collegiate Baseball has been building all season, and it received another jolt on Saturday for the Kaiser Division semifinals as four teams vied for the right to play for the division title. Both games were settled in spectacular yet contrasting fashion.

At Hite Field, Westhampton tallied 10 runs in the fifth inning to put away the Breakers early en route to a 17-0 victory; North Fork stormed back from a 3-0 deficit in the final two innings to force extras and then capitalized on a Riverhead error to pull out the 4-3 win..

Games 1 and 2 of the championship series will take place at Cochran Park beginning Sunday at 4 p.m. Should a champion not be decided on Sunday, Westhampton will host the decisive third game at Hite Field at 5 p.m. on Monday.

For the Aviators, Chris Walker (Fordham) socked a grand slam that punctuated the 10-run outburst, which began with a three-run homer by Mike Mandarino (Camden County). It proved to be plenty of run support for starter Justin Bradley (UNC Wilmington), who dazzled the Breaker bats to earn the victory. Nick Melchiorre (Fairleigh Dickinson), who won the ACBL earned run average title with a sparkling 0.97 mark, had thrown seven innings of shutout ball in a 6-0 win on July 24 but was unable to keep the Aviator bats down again.

On the North Fork, the Osprey crowd was treated to a thriller. Riverhead went ahead 3-0 and maintained that lead through six innings behind ace Nick Tropeano (Stony Brook). North Fork finally broke through in the seventh with a pair of runs, one scoring on a throwing error by Justin Echevarria (Stony Brook) and the second on a two-out single by Mike Gastelum (St. Mary's). Still, the Ospreys trailed by one; that deficit was erased when Jamie Liebowitz (Albany) roped the first pitch he saw from reliever Matt Fitton (Sacred Heart) over the left field fence for a solo home run in the eighth inning. In the 10th, runners were at the corners with two outs when Rob Andrews (Cortland) took off for second. Echevarria's throw to gun down Andrews sailed high and wide of second, allowing Rocco Gondek (Sacred Heart) to trot home with the winning run.

Anthony Kupbens (UC Davis), who missed his flight home to be available to pitch, went four scoreless innings and fanned nine to earn the victory. He came on in relief of starter Scott Gussaroff (Fairfield) with two runners on and struck out the side. Gussaroff went six innings and gave up three runs but earned the no decision.