By HUNTER O. LYLE
HAMBURG, NY – For the better part of the afternoon, the opposing dugout was a choir.
Chants, chirps and chatter flooded onto the field from Grand Island’s benchmates, no more so than when they hung six runs on the scoreboard in the bottom of the second. While the Olean baseball team was no stranger to pressure, having reached the Section VI Class A Crossover championship completing back-to-back comebacks, this time they couldn’t silence the music.
After churning out the most successful playoff campaign in nearly a decade, taking home the Chautauqua Cattaraugus Athletic Association Division I title as well as the Class A2 championship, the Huskies’ tanks emptied with a 10-0, five-frame loss to Grand Island.
“I told the boys, they have everything to be proud of. Before today, we lost one other game by one run. 18-1 coming into today, that’s something you can hang your hat on,” said Olean head coach Les DeGolier. “The path to get here against teams like Depew and Maryvale and Lew-Port, that’s a tough road and they rose to the top of that challenge. I’m really proud of their development throughout the season and the work that they’ve put in.”
While Olean was grinding out gritty wins on route to the edge of the New York Public High School Athletic Association (NYPHSSA) State Tournament, the Vikings were rolling there. Having amassed a 27-7 margin of victory in their previous three postseason bouts, Grand Island put their infamous bats on display. Although they only brought a single runner around home plate in the first, the floodgates opened in the second.
A lead-off single was followed by an RBI-single, a ground-roll-double and a third single which lifted the Vikings to a four-run lead. Tacking on two outs over the next three men up, Grand Island put the finishing touches on the frame thereafter with a hard hit homer over the centerfield wall, scoring three.
Meanwhile, Olean’s offense fell silent. Despite finding men on base, including one just 90 feet away from home in the top of the first, a clutch hit, which had been a staple of the Huskies’ playoff run, never came. As the Vikings’ lead reached double-digits through the fourth, Olean season finally fell short of a rally.
“That’s a strong lineup. I would be pretty surprised if (Grand Island) didn’t go pretty deep in the state tournament. They have a lot of players, a lot of players that can play,” said DeGolier. “We knew it was going to be a challenge. We knew if we were going to win, it would have to be a slugfest and we had a couple chances but whether it was a mistake on the bases or just didn’t get a hit through (Grand Island) was able to keep us off the scoreboard.”
Grady Smucinski ended a perfect 2-for-2 to lead the Huskies at the plate, while Taylor Teachmen also went flawless at 1-for-1. On the mound, Noah Cartmill and Dom Myers both tallied a pair of strikeouts.
Despite the hard feelings of the finality, Les DeGolier reflected on what it took to reach this stage, efforts that shouldn’t be lost in the midst of elimination. No more are those gains visible with his senior class, who before this year’s Class A2 championship had experienced just one playoff win in four years, and now walk off the field with bittersweet memories.
“(The seniors) bring everything. That’s a bunch of guys and some other guys that have played three years and I’ve just watched them develop,” said Les DeGolier. “They knew what it was going to take. Seeing a loss last year, they knew how much harder they’d have to work and how much harder they’d have to push to get over that hump and they did it. They led while they did it, they pulled the underclassmen up with them and it was really cool to see them accomplish their goals of a Section VI title.”
AT HAMBURG
Olean 000 00 R:0 H:4 E:1
Grand Island 161 2X R:10 H:9 E:0
Olean: Cartmill (2 SO, 1 BB), Myers (2) (2 SO, 3 BB) and DeGolier
Grand Island: Sharkey (7 SO, 4 BB) and Leo
