New York City’s dreams of the Little League World Series will have to wait at least another year.
The Staten Island South Shore Little League’s run in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, ended with a 6-1 loss to Florida on Tuesday, despite a valiant effort by the New York team that tied the game in the fourth inning and featured an 86-pitch performance by starter Stephen Grippo.
Before this year’s tournament, a team from New York City had not won the title since 1964, when a team, also from Staten Island, won the overall title.
An attentive baserunning by Teraj Alexander of Florida helped the team from Lake Mary to the decisive point in the fifth inning.
Florida had runners on second and first base when Christopher Chikodroff hit a ball toward the gap between first and second base. Alexander had to dodge the hard-hit ball, causing confusion among the Staten Island infielders.
The play allowed Liam Morrisey to score from second base and Alexander to reach third.
The Florida Little Leaguers scored four more runs in the sixth inning on a sacrifice fly by James Feliciano and a three-run home run by DeMarcos Mieses.
Tuesday’s loss was similar to Staten Island’s previous games in the tournament, where the New Yorkers had to go through the order once before their bats came to life.
In the previous two games, Staten Island had a second-round batting average of .652.
New York got off to a strong start with Grippo, who pitched 4 ⅔ innings, striking out seven batters and allowing two runs on two hits.
He began the game by striking out four of the first six batters he faced on Tuesday night in Williamsport.
Things got tough for the Staten Island starter in the third inning, when he walked a batter, allowed a hit and also hit a batter after taking Morrissey out of the game earlier in the inning.
Grippo managed to force Lathan Norton to line out, but allowed Hunter Alexander to walk the game’s first run after five pitches before ending the period with just one run.
Staten Island had a chance to strike back in the bottom of the third inning, but after Dean Scarangello was hit by a pitch and Dylan DeGaeta, one of Staten Island’s best hitters during the tournament, brought runners to the corners with a single, Florida starter Garrett Rohozen was able to strike out the next two batters and end the inning.
Staten Island tied the game in the fourth inning when Jason Rocchio was hit in the helmet by a dangerous pitch.
Vincent Ruggiero brought Rocchio to third base with a double and a sacrifice fly by Grippo resulted in the team’s only run of the game.
Scarangello came in to pitch in the middle of the fifth inning after Grippo had reached 86 pitches.
Alex Torres and Zach Weiss also came into the game as substitutes.