Is there extra pressure for the Staten Island South Shore Little League under the bright lights of Williamsport?
“We love night games,” Staten Island manager Bob Laterza said Tuesday after their win over Hinsdale, Illinois. “If we could move that to 9 p.m. instead of 7 p.m., we would be very grateful. We love night games. We’re a night team.”
If those words are true, then Staten Island would go into Tuesday’s Little League World Series game against Boerne, Texas, which lost 4-1 to Lake Mary, Florida, in the winner’s bracket on Monday night, with a slight advantage as the game is scheduled for 7 p.m.
The Staten Islanders quickly made up for their difficult start to this year’s tournament – a 9-1 loss to Henderson, Nevada, in the winners’ bracket – by winning two win-or-lose games over the weekend to keep New York City’s hopes alive in Williamsport.
After scoring just one run in the first game, Staten Island scored a total of ten runs in games against South Dakota and Illinois over the weekend, with the team’s offense blossoming in the fourth inning on Saturday and Sunday.
Staten Island scored four runs in the fourth inning to help erase a 1-0 deficit in Saturday’s win, and also broke a scoreless tie early in the same inning Sunday morning.
It has become a recurring theme on offense that it only had to go through the lineup one time before it really got going.
“I’d love to do that in the first and second at-bats, then we’d be much better off,” Laterza said. “But they need to get some time to get these guys moving. Especially at 9 a.m. in games.”
Vincent Ruggiero and Jake Romero have put in two impressive performances on the mound for Staten Island in a row, allowing a total of three runs in the last two games.
Offensively, the Staten Island team has provided several players with big hits, with both Dylan DeGaeta and Nicholas McLean hitting a team-high .667 through the first three games of the tournament. Both players have had four hits in six at-bats since the Little League World Series began last week.
“It’s because pitchers aren’t throwing as hard as they do in the States,” DeGaeta said Sunday of his success at the plate. “I can see the ball better and I’ve been hitting really good curveballs lately. Two of my four hits have been curveballs. I think I’m just hitting curveballs right now.”
Laterza, who called DeGaeta “The Gata” after Sunday’s win, said only that “his time” had come and that DeGaeta “has been a thug all along.”
“He gives me hits when I need them,” the Staten Island manager said. “He digs deep and, more importantly than his batting average, which is already high, he gives me timely hits when I need them most.”
Staten Island had a day off on Monday after playing back-to-back games over the weekend and taking part in the Little League Classic between the Yankees and Tigers on Sunday night.
