St. John’s Prep with a championship trophy after their victory over Monsignor Scanlan at Kaiser Stadium in Queens (Denis Gostev)
St. John’s Prep was one strike away from what Paul Perez called “a St. John’s tradition,” from losing to Monsignor Scanlan and forcing a decisive final game in the CHSAA Class A double-elimination tournament.
“Every single time we’ve made the championship, we’ve lost the first game,” Red Storm coach Jason Bigeni said.
But Alex Gounaris wasn’t much interested in tradition.
The senior pitcher and cleanup hitter took an outside fastball from Scanlan’s Usiel Reyes, a thorn in the Red Storm’s side for two years, and put it just past shortstop Julian Prieto as Perez raced home to score the tying run.
“Honestly, I just thought bat on the ball,” said Gounaris, who was 2-for-4 with two RBIs.
It sparked a remarkable rally as second-seeded St. John’s scored four runs in the top of the seventh to beat No. 1 Monsignor Scanlan, 7-5, and capture the Class A title for the third time in four years Thursday night at Kaiser Stadium on the campus of St. John’s University.
“In 10 years of coaching, this is probably the team that has the biggest heart,” Bigeni said.
After Gounaris’ tying single to left, Edwin Vidal followed with a two-run triple to deep center and the leftfielder scored on one of two errors by Scanlan third baseman Christian Lozano in the inning.
“It’s tough,” first-year Scanlan coach Keith Del Valle said. “As a coach I could have done a few things differently, I could have called a different pitch and it will haunt me. But that’s baseball.”
Still, Scanlan (12-4), which rallied from a 3-0 deficit to take a 4-3 lead, wouldn’t go down without a fight. After Robert Negron led off the bottom of the seventh with a walk, he scored on Benjamin Franqui’s double to left to cut the Crusaders deficit to 7-5. Javon Collins then singled to left and Bigeni pulled Gounaris, who gave up five runs on nine hits, striking out seven with three walks, for Perez.
“These guys are fighters, a great senior class that’s graduating,” Del Valle said. “I’ll remember them forever because they’re amazing battlers.”
Reyes reached on a fielder’s choice and he represented the tying run at first. But Perez struck out Albert Fernandez looking to end the game and spark a wild celebration on the field that includes many from the raucous St. John’s Prep student section.
“My catcher has this one side for the outside corner that I always hit,” Perez said. “I threw it and once the umpire turned, it’s hard to remember, but it was just all elation. It was unbelievable.”
St. John’s Prep (12-2) lost both regular-season meetings, but thumped Reyes and Scanlan earlier in the double-elimination tournament. That gave the Red Storm confidence facing the hard-throwing Reyes, who struck out the first three batters he faced in relief of starter Javon Collins.
“Usiel Reyes has had our number the last two years and when I saw him come in I started to get nightmares again,” Bigeni said. “We faced him on Sunday and got to him and I think the guys [believed] we could hit him.”
Gounaris certainly could, and did, which led to an emotional postgame celebration with his teammates.
“We had a bet on who was going to cry first and I said it’s not going to be me, but me and [catcher] Joey [McDonald], the veterans, were the first ones tearing up in our last game,” Gounaris said. “I’m never going to forget this.”