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Sports

Battling Bears Take Home Regional Crown

Briarcliff earns trip to state final four in baseball.

For those who love roller coasters, the regional baseball championship game between Mattituck and Briarcliff was your type of game.

It was a game that went back and forth as each team went through the gamut of emotions. When all was said and done, though, it was the Bears who came out on top of this wild ride Tuesday afternoon at .

Led by Zach Ship, who was 3 for 4 with four RBI, including a double and a home run, the Bears defeated Mattituck 9-8 for the regional championship. Briarcliff will now travel to Broome Community College in Binghamton 10 a.m. Saturday, June 11 to play Section 6 champ Dunkirk.

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If the Bears win that game, they will play for the school’s first Class B state title at 4 p.m. against the winner of Chenango Valley and Saratoga Catholic.

Briarcliff did win a state title in Class D in 1998.

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“It’s amazing,” Bears’ winning pitcher Paul Henshaw said. “It’s a great feeling, but now we have to take states.”

The feeling is in contrast to when the Bears’ season was ended by Kennedy Catholic in last year’s Section 1 Class B championship game. The Bears were one strike away from winning it but fell to the Gaels in extra innings 7-6.

“The difference of what we are feeling this year compared to last year is night and day,” Ship said. “Last year was the feeling of just pure despair and right now we are on top of the world.”

The Bears are on top of the world right now because they refused to quit, even though they trailed numerous times against the Long Island school.

“They have heart and they have character, bottom line,” Briarcliff Coach John Consorti said of his players. “They just know how to fight.”

The Bears showed that fight early in the game when they trailed 3-0 going into the bottom of the first and their first two batters struck out. John Fussell, who was 2 for 3 on the day, started the two-out rally with a single, Henshaw then walked and Louis Carrafiello got hit by the pitch to load the bases.

That is where Ship came up big, when he slugged a three-run double that tied the game at 3-3.

“Our game is timely hitting, pitching and defense,” Ship said. “The bases were loaded, I have had a bunch of at bats this year with the bases loaded. I saw a pitch to hit and I got a good swing on it.”

Briarcliff continued to swing the bats well when a two-run homer by Ryan Huegel, which easily cleared the left-field fence and landed in the trees, gave the Bears a 5-3 lead in the second inning. Huegel’s homer came with Spencer Kulman, who singled, on base.

“We have that [hitting] in us,” Consorti said.”We have done that a few times during the year. We are more a patient team, making other teams throw. We came up with some clutch hits. We were really smoking the ball.”

After a two-run homer by Mattituck’s Yianni Rauseo, who was 2 for 3 with three RBI, tied the game in the third inning, a solo home run by Ship put the Bears back up, 6-5.

Mattituck then rallied for three runs in the fifth to go up 8-6 before the Bears rallied on back to back RBI doubles by Colin Orr and Kulman to tie the game.

Briarcliff got the tie-breaking run when Brendan Weinstein led off with a walk in the bottom of the sixth and eventually scored from third on a two-out error by the Mattituck right fielder.

Josh Miller then relieved Henshaw with a runner on and no out in the top of the seventh and saved the game, enabling the Bears to take home the regional crown.

“[Henshaw and Miller] are the guys that we have been riding all year, so we were going to live and die with them,” Consorti said.

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