Spartans win host tournament by playing ‘Hankey Ball’

GREAT BARRINGTON – This year was supposed to be a rebuilding year. It was supposed to be a wash for the Monument baseball team, especially after an early season 19-2 drubbing by Pittsfield.

However, in less than a week the magic known as “Hankey Ball” has returned, as the Spartans beat Wahconah 3-2 on Saturday and St. Joe’s 7-5 on Monday to win the Monument Baseball Tournament over the Patriot’s Day weekend.

“We are doing it, and it was a nice feather in our cap to win this tournament,” Head Coach Tom Hankey said. “To be as young as we are with the freshman and sophomores – pretty soon I can’t use that excuse anymore because we will be halfway through the season.”

What the Spartans have always relied on in past success was strong pitching and defense and capitalizing on the other team’s mistakes.

Monday was no different, despite St. Joe’s jumping out to an early 3-0 lead as Crusaders starting pitcher Michael Carpenter mowed down the Spartans with two strikeouts in the first, as everyone in the park thought it was going to be St. Joe’s day.

“We were fortunate – we got a couple of breaks and took advantage of them,” Hankey said.

The Spartans opened the bottom of the second with singles by Dan Meandro and TJ Shumsky.

Carpenter then had Meandro picked off second with a great move from the mound; however, the Crusaders’ infielders botched the easy play, allowing both runners to advance in scoring position with no outs.

Carpenter retired the next two batters, but allowed both runners to score on wild pitches to make it a 3-2 game.

Spartan starting pitcher Christian Callahan settled down after the first, after allowing three runs on three walks and two singles, to pitch five innings allowing five hits, five walks and four earned runs with one strikeout.

Callahan earned the win after the Spartans went ahead in the fourth when tournament MVP Shumsky led off with a liner to center and Henri Morrison knocked him in with an infield hit between the first and second baseman that the Crusaders had no chance on.

Dominic DeFelice then drove in Morrison with a two-out single with a liner to center to give the Spartans the 4-3 lead.

Monument’s Trevor McFarland added a two-out RBI double down the left field line that helped the Spartans build a 6-3 advantage.

The Crusaders had chances in both the third and fifth innings to put runs on the board but the Hankey magic played a role as Meandro made a fantastic backhand stop in the third to save a run and the Crusaders ran into an out in the fifth – literally.

After St. Joe’s Jon Bianchi and Joe Bongini led off with singles, Bongini ran into Monument shortstop Bobby Kinne on a one-out ground ball for an automatic out, forcing Bianchi to return to third.

Callahan then retired the next batter on a groundball to end the inning, ruining the Crusaders best scoring chance of the afternoon.

“[Callahan] got off to a slow start because he didn’t throw enough in the bullpen, but he is getting into the groove and getting better every time he goes up there, [which] is great,” Hankey said.

James Allentuck came in for relief in the sixth, as Callahan walked the first two batters, to struck out the side despite allowing Callahan’s runners to score on two walks and an error – the only blemish on the day for Monument.

The St. Joe’s runs made it a 6-5 game heading into the bottom of the sixth.

Meandro added a RBI single on a shot to center in the bottom half, before Allentuck pitched a scoreless seventh for the save.

“We grew up today, I am proud of them – we really came into our own and that was nice to see,” Hankey said.

Posted by Tim Davis on April 18, 2013. Filed under High School Sports,Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry