Final: Longwood 4, Walt Whitman 3
WP: Matt Faraone & hit 2 R homerLongwood improves to 12-1 pic.twitter.com/HTR356iUSV
— Axcess Baseball LI (@axcessbaseball) April 29, 2025
The sign of a great team, is being able to win even when they don’t play their best game. Longwood has appeared to be that type of team this season. The Lions sit atop the League I standings, and entered Tuesday with a critical series against a young and talented Walt Whitman with their ace on the hill. They were able to overcame a late 3-0 deficit and found a way to win, 4-3, on a walk-off hit by Luke Rizzi.
Walt Whitman sent ace RHP Jaden Grose to the mound, the junior is one of the top pitchers in the northeast. He looked every bit of that today as he was electric. He squared off against fellow junior Brendan Rivera for the Lions. Whitman jumped out to a quick 2-0 lead in the top of the first on a two-run shot to left by Lucien Saint Cyr, who scored Michael Orgera.
Grose worked around a one-out walk in the bottom of the first with a strikeout of Brayden Plugues.
After the teams traded zeros in the second inning, Whitman added to their lead in the top of the third with a two-out RBI single by Andrew Buckshaw who scored Saint Cyr, who walked and stole second.
At this point in the game, it appeared that Grose would simply be too tough to overcome, but Longwood certainly has a way of figuring out how to score and overcome and circumstance.
Cameron Horn hit a one-out double off the left field fence to put himself into scoring position, but Grose struck out the next two batters to escape any damage in the third inning. They also had a golden opportunity in the fourth inning when Brayden Plugues reached on a dropped fly ball by the center fielder and was sacrificed to third base by Brayden Franco but Grose struck out Luke Rizzi and induced a ground out to third to escaped unscathed.
Rivera wound up pitching five innings, allowing three runs on five hits. three walks and five strikeouts.
The game turned in the bottom of the fifth inning, potentially thanks to some gusty winds blowing out. After the leadoff batter struck out, Dan Blank walked and stole second. Cameron Horn grounded out to Grose for the second out to bring up the top of the lineup. Matt Faraone got one up in the air to left and it went out to get the Lions on the board, but more importantly, it gave them some life. After an error by the third baseman, Grose struck out Brayden Plugues for his 9th strikeout of the game.
Tyler Groblewski came on in relief and fired a 1-2-3 inning to get his team back in the dugout.
The Lions capitalized on some more poor defense in the home half of the sixth. A leadoff error put Brayden Franco on second base with no out. After Grose notched his 10th K of the game, the next batter grounded back to Grose who fired a perfect throw to nail the runner at third for the second out. Paul Capobianco hit a fly ball to right that was misplayed to give the Lions some life and put the tying run at third. Dan Blank was the ensuing batter, he hit a grounder to third that he was able to leg out for a game-tying RBI infield single. That made the game 3-3. The following batter was retired to send the game to the 7th.
Bottom 6: Dan Blank reached on an infield single to tie the game 3-3 pic.twitter.com/Bu02enJdBu
— Axcess Baseball LI (@axcessbaseball) April 29, 2025
Faraone took the mound for the Lions and he struck out Grose and Duffy to begin the inning, but a grounder was booted at third base to prolong the inning, and the next batter walked to make things dicey for Longwood. The inning was ended, though, on a grounder to shortstop off the bat of Dan Ryan.
In the bottom of the 7th, Grose went back to the mound. It was a bit surprising considering he appeared to suffer some type of injury to his leg or ankle in the sixth and was in visible pain, he was able to gut through it to end the inning. After Grose notched his 11th K of the game, a fly ball was misplayed by the left field to put Jagger Franco in scoring position. Grose intentionally walked Brayden Plugues before striking out Brayden Franco for his 12th K of the game. His pitch count was at 106 and he was taken out of the game. The reliever, Andrew Buckshaw, came on to face Luke Rizzi in a pivotal moment. Rizzi hit one on the ground that got past the third baseman who was ranging to his left, allowing Franco to score and send the hometown nine into a frenzy.
With the victory, Longwood improves to 12-1 in league play. They will clinch League I with a win in either of the next two games. Game 2 of the series will be on Thursday at South Huntington Public Library.
