There will not be a return trip to Williamsport for the South Shore National Little League.
The Staten Island dynamo, which reached the Little League World Series last year, received an excellent performance from starter Nicholas Meola, but was stymied by Stony Point ace John Greeley and fell 3-2 in the New York State 12-year-old tournament final at Dexter Stadium in West Nyack Monday night.
Meola allowed three unearned runs on three hit hits over five innings while striking out seven. He even homered to left center with two outs in the top of the sixth to pull South Shore within a run.
“We only needed one run so I thought we still had some hope,” Meola said…“[There were] some plays that if we made it probably [it] would have been a different game.”
The righthander appeared to have worked around a leadoff walk in the first, but Brian Bohlander’s groundball took a wicked hop on shortstop Anthony Scotti, allowing the game’s first run to cross. South Shore got even in the second on a passed ball that allowed Chris Nierva, who led off with a walk, to score. Greeley would strand Salvatore Mauro at third with two outs and left Meola, who doubled to start the inning, at third in the fourth.
“The pitcher was the best we saw,” South Shore coach Mike Zaccariello said. “He deserves all the credit, but we failed to execute two bunts.”
Those might have helped push across another run or at least force Greeley to raise his pitch count and be pulled earlier.
His teammates gave him all the runs he needed in the third. Glenn Stila reached on an error to start the inning and Greeley was intentionally walked with one out. Both runners tagged up on a fly out to centerfield. Stony Point took the lead on a wild pitch and made it 3-1 on an infield single by Rob McFadden.
“Meola threw an ‘A’ game,” Zaccariello said of his ace. “He threw an ‘A’-plus last time out. We were hoping for an ‘A’-plus…Against these guys maybe [we] would have needed an ‘A’-plus.”
Following Meola’s homer in the sixth, Stony Point manager Brian Coyle asked the umpires about protesting the game since Zaccariello had not used two of his subs. By rule, each player needs to get one at bat and play three outs in the field. Zaccariello said he had a plan to get the final two kids in if his team took the lead or tied the score, but he would not get that chance as reliever Frankie Negro recorded the final two outs.
“We’ve worked hard in practice,” Meola said. “This league has been good for a long time and we had a good run.”