Takeaways from Maine-Endwell's Section 4 Class A title win over Union-Endicott

The Man saved a little something special for what was presumably his final game in Maine-Endwell’s spectacular baseball facility.

Michael Mancini homered in the Spartans’ first at-bat, tacked on another three innings later and wound up 3-for-3 with three runs and four RBI in the hosts’ 10-0 trouncing of Union-Endicott for Section 4’s Class A championship. The game ended in the last of the fifth in accordance with the 10-run rule.

Sophomore pitcher Liam Hadfield permitted U-E one hit — a two-out single in the second —  on a day M-E wrapped up a best-of-three series in two games. The Spartans were 2-1 winners Monday on the Tigers’ field.

Jack Hennessey, Aidan McBride and Justin Ryan had two hits each for Maine-Endwell (11-5), which receives a first-round bye and will oppose the champion from Section 1 or 9 June 4 at Saugerties. The Spartans are one victory from returning to the final four of state playoffs, in which they were runner-up to Ballston Spa in 2019, most recent year they were contested.

The Spartans defended in error-free fashion for a second consecutive outing against U-E.

Mancini Factor was huge

Maine-Endwell’s leadoff batter had first cracks after Hadfield quieted U-E in a 1-2-3 top of the first that brought two strikeouts.

Eyeballing a 3-2 pitch, lefty-batting Mancini muscled a ball over the fence in left field, neither much inside the foul pole nor with much doubt it was a 1-0 ballgame one batter in. And get this from Spartans coach Matt Raleigh, when it was suggested Michael played like Michael:

“Michael played above Michael today. Michael’s been good all year, but you come out, soon as that home run in the first inning I thought the game was over with momentum right there.

Next at-bat for Mancini came in the second, one out and a man on second base, and he singled to center to make it a 3-0 difference. Then came a first-pitch no-doubter over the right-field fence to make it 5-0 with one down in the fourth. This young man appeared bent on making his home-field send-off something memorable.

Mancini drew a bases-full walk in the five-run fifth to extend the lead to 9-0, and Jack Hennessey followed with a single to polish it off.

Hadfield just plain sharp

Maine-Endwell’s pitcher struck out three and walked two. He induced a 6-5 force to end U-E’s second with runners at first and second, in the fourth retired three in a row after hitting the first batter, and worked the tidiest of a 1-2-3 fifth.

“Did a great job. Sophomore stepped up big-time,” Raleigh said. “He was throwing three pitches today, he spotted his fastball extremely well, he worked ahead in the count. We pitch to contact, we have a great defense, we don’t try striking 100 guys out. We try to work ahead, let our defense stay in the game and do our things … He did a great job, never really got himself in trouble today.”

Spartans withstood early woes

Maine-Endwell was looking at a 3-5 record before winning eight in succession. Raleigh cited a moment following a 19-14 loss to Ithaca on April 25 as something of a breakthrough.

“It got ugly,” he said. “We had a little meeting after that game and unfortunately the next game we played Horseheads, which was a really good team, and they put it to us (17-5). We were out of pitching both days.

“Since then, I don’t think we’ve lost a game.”

From U-E’s side

Tigers coach Tim Harkness said:

“They came out and took the game from us, didn’t give us an opportunity. They pitched well, they played defense. In both games, they played defense well, they pitched well. We just couldn’t get hits. We’ve scored a total of six runs in four games against them. That’s completely out of character for our team. We’ve been scoring runs all year, we’ve been doing the things we’ve needed to do, and they just for some reason had our number.

“Unfortunately for us, we happen to be in the same class and they got us. In four games this year, they took three.

“ … I don’t know what it is. We just played completely out of character against them all year, There was no run support all year against them and we were a team that (otherwise) was consistently putting up runs all year.”

“They had timely hits, we did not. We get a couple hits that first game, it’s a different game. Jude (Abbadessa) pitches a great game, 15 strikeouts, we get one hit and it’s a completely different ballgame.”

Follow Kevin Stevens on Twitter @PSBKevin. You can also reach him at kstevens@gannett.com. To get unlimited access to the latest news, please subscribe or activate your digital account today.

This article originally appeared on Binghamton Press & Sun-Bulletin: Baseball: Maine-Endwell shuts out U-E for Section 4 Class A title