If Jamaica was a car, it’s fuel meter would have been reading “E” in the late innings.
The Beavers had a draining week. They had to play three games in three days and one of those nights, they also had their senior prom.
“I think it would have been rough for anybody,” coach Mike Pallisco said.
The afternoon after the prom, they were able to gut out a win against Queens HS of Teaching. But the brutal stretch was visible in No. 5 Jamaica’s 11-3 loss to seventh-seeded Lab Museum United in a PSAL Class B semifinal elimination game Thursday afternoon at John Bowne HS in Flushing.
The Beavers, who have now been ousted in the final four two years in a row, had a 3-1 lead in the fifth inning before the Gators scored 10 unanswered runs in the sixth and seventh.
“Fatigue and frustration,” Pallisco said.
LMU (16-3) got on the board quickly in the first inning courtesy of a booming double by Kaylee Cimino. But Jamaica (17-3), which has become used to playing with the lead in the postseason, came back in the second with a run of its own. The score stayed tied at 1 until the fifth when Racheal Ali belted a long double that scored Joanna Scott and Jae Anne Baccay.
Things were looking good for the Beavers at that point. Ace pitcher Je Lisa Rhodes had given up just that first-inning run and struck out five through five innings.
But then the wheels fell off. Lab Museum scored four times in the sixth and Rhodes walked a pair of batters to contribute to the uprising. Jamaica’s defense came apart in the seventh – the Beavers committed three errors – and LMU tallied six more runs.
“It’s not the greatest feeling – especially when we should have won that game against LaGuardia [on Tuesday],” Pallisco said. “If we had that one, it becomes a little easier.”
That victory would have put Jamaica in the driver’s seat. Instead, the Beavers will have to settle for a second straight semifinal finish. They don’t lose too many seniors, but Rhodes, Ali and Baccay will graduate. And it’s hard to find another one like Rhodes, who was one of the top pitchers in the ‘B’ league the last two years.
“Any time you have a pitcher like that, you’re gonna miss her,” Pallisco said.
Not that he’s ready to write Jamaica off in 2011. In fact, he’s already preparing two other pitchers to take the hill next year.
“Hopefully they develop,” Pallisco said. “Anything can happen.”