On April 30, Harrison traveled to Eastchester for the second game of a season series with the Eagles. But despite topping Eastchester last week, the Huskies ran into a stiffer challenge the second time around, falling 12-4 to their league rival. As the 7-3 Huskies look to finish the remainder of the 2016 regular season, they hope that their tough loss to Eastchester will motivate them to hang on to the top spot in the league standings.
At Haindl Field on Saturday, Harrison simply wasn’t able to capitalize on scoring chances, plating just four runs, despite cobbling together an impressive nine-hit effort against Eagles’ starter Jess Becchetti. Stevie Carpiniello shined for Harrison, going 2-4 with an RBI, but Eastchester, led by sophomore Sophia Tiso’s four-hit, four-RBI day, proved to be too much to deal with at the plate.
“We still had nine hits, our offense was the same as it was in game one, but [Eastchester] just didn’t make any mistakes,” Harrison coach Dean Marino said. “They had a lot of great, clutch hits, and they really seemed to find the gap.”
Becchetti picked up the win for the Eagles, while sophomore Sydney Braiotta, who allowed six earned runs in 3.1 innings, was saddled with the loss; but so far this season, the young hurler, along with freshman Taylor Day, has been invaluable to the Huskies.
Both pitchers have appeared in every game this season and give Harrison a solid 1-2 punch.
“When we started this year, our main concern was having these two young pitchers,” Marino said. “But they are getting better every day, they’re pitching in every game and they’re different types of pitchers, so that really throws the hitters off.”
With nine games left to play in the season, the Huskies’ one league loss still puts them atop the conference standings, and a game against Pelham scheduled for Thursday, May 5, after press time, could go a long way toward determining who emerges as the league champion.
But more of a pressing issue than Harrison’s opponents, Marino said, is the weather forecast. Right now, the regular season is scheduled to end on Saturday, May 14, but rain could throw a curveball into the proceedings. Faced with four potential rainouts in the coming days, Harrison might be scrambling to make up games right up until the Section I seeding meeting.
“Right now, it looks like we’re not going to see the sun until Monday,” the head coach said. “The league games have to be played, so we’ll see what happens.”
