After Perfect Season Cubs Fall Short In Playoffs

SKIP PEARLMAN CARMEL—The 14U Carmel Cubs started their season in late June with a win over the Haverstraw Hurricanes, it would be the first of 19 straight wins the Cubs picked up before running into them again in second round of the WPBA playoffs. The fourth seeded Hurricanes (16-4) made the most of their second opportunity, and beat the top seeded Cubs, 12-2 on Thursday.

Mahopac shortstop Tom Krasniqi puts the tag on Lewisboro runner, who is safe at second. “It didn’t look like we came ready to play,” said coach Bob Shofi. “Our kids didn’t really hit too well.”

The Hurricanes had jumped out to an early 4-0 lead, but the Cubs rallied in the bottom of the second to cut the Hurricanes’ lead in half. The Cubs got on the board thanks to back-to-back RBI singles by Sebastian Russo and Stefan Sookedeo, they would go onto load the bases with one out but failed to push across any more runs.

That would be the last time the Cubs threatened to cut into the Hurricanes’ lead. Mike Palmiero finished with two hits to lead the Cubs, while Tom Shofi doubled for the Cubs’ only extra-base hit of the game.

The Hurricanes scored two more runs off of Cubs starter Mike Bello in the fourth to reestablish their four run lead. Bello then pitched a scoreless fifth, and was replaced at the end of the inning by Joe Burns. Bello finished with three strikeouts, and was charged with six runs in his five innings of work.

“Bello was getting tired, and Joe had pitched well the previous game,” Shofi said. “We figured we’d see what he could give us and tried to save Brandon Tong for Saturday.”

Burns came out strong to start the inning, he struck out the first batter he faced and retired the next to quickly get two outs, but getting the third out proved to be difficult.

“He got the first two outs, and then there was a couple of bloops, a walk and a couple of errors,” Shofi said. “Then they got a couple of bombs to open up the game.”

The game was called after a threerun homer pushed the deficit to 10 runs, putting the Cubs on the losing side for the first time all year.

“We didn’t know how to handle it,” Shofi said. “We didn’t lose in 19 games, and then the playoffs come and we lose. The kids are down, but we had a team party the other day and everyone was upbeat. They can’t take away 19-0, and we got a nice banner and jackets from the league, so it’s a nice parting gift.”

BASEBALL

CARMEL 2 Haverstraw 12