Though it took longer than planned, the Westhill baseball team would carry a 26-game win streak into Saturday’s state Class B final four.
The Warriors beat Section IV champion Chenango Valley 4-1 in a Class B regional final at Conlon Field in Binghamton, a game that took nearly 48 hours to complete.
They had started the game on Monday night, with Ryan Malley on the mound. As a light rain fell, Malley allowed an opening hit to Donnie Fry, then kept the CV lineup hitless for the rest of his abbreviated stint on the mound.
Greg Schmidt delivered a two-run single in the second inning to push Westhill in front. An inning later, with Mike DeCarr on base due to a walk, Pat Lemmo crushed Taylor Howard’s pitch over the centerfield fence, doubling Westhill’s margin to 4-0.
So it remained as the rain grew in intensity. Finally, in the bottom of the fifth, with a CV runner on first and one out, the game got stopped, just short of being official.
They resumed on Wednesday afternoon, with the rain long gone. DeCarr took over on the mound for Lemmo and promptly escaped any possible trouble by inducing a 1-6-3 double play.
Westhill wouldn’t score again, but didn’t need to, either. DeCarr forced another 1-6-3 double play in the sixth inning, and though he gave up Taylor Howard’s solo home run in the bottom of the seventh, plus a walk, he struck out the side to end matters.
On Saturday at 1 p.m., Westhill returns to Conlon Field (inside MacArthur Park) to face Fredonia (Section VI) in the state semifinals. The winner plays the survivor of the 10 a.m. game between Dobbs Ferry and Beekmantown in the championship game at 4 p.m.
