Garden City U11 District Baseball Team with their Championship Banner The Garden City U11 District team won the District 29 Championship on July 21st by beating Franklin Square 10-8 in heart-stopping fashion. The team had made it into the finals by beating their first three opponents. On July 19th, they were matched against Franklin Square again. Earlier in the tournament they had beaten Franklin Square which meant that Franklin Square needed to beat them twice to win the title. The July 19th matchup saw Franklin Square defeat Garden City 4-3 in a hotly fought contest. This set the stage for the July 21st winner take all game at Harris Field in Malverne.

Garden City scored early and often in this game. In the first inning after one out, Peter Sceusa drew a walk, there was an error by Franklin Square, Mike Goulard walked and then Connor Molloy drove home 2 runs with a single. A wild pitch scored another run, and Joey Pizzingrillo brought in another one for a 4 run first inning.

Garden City picked up where they left off in the second inning. Mikey Nygaard and Timmy Dehler opened with basehits and Owen Prendergast was hit by a pitch. Mike Goulard got a run in and then Connor Molloy blasted a double to bring in 2 more. Mike Desimone and Joey Pizzingrillo followed with hits to finish the scoring and stake Garden City to a 10-0 lead.

It looked then that Garden City might cruise to victory but that was not to be. Franklin Square had no quit in them scoring 4 runs in the second and one in the third to cut the lead in half. Both teams were held scoreless in the fourth, Garden City did not score in the top of the fifth and Franklin Square tacked on three more in their half of the fifth to make it 10-8 entering the last inning.

Garden City did not score in the top of the sixth so it was down to Franklin Square’s last at bat. Mike Goulard had come in to pitch in the fifth inning after Joey Pizzingrillo pitched a gutty 4 innings keeping Garden City ahead. The inning started with a walk and stolen base bringing the tying run to the plate. The next batter after fouling off 6 pitches hit a deep fly to leftfielder Nolan Prendergast who caught it and fired a bullit to Kyle Quinn to nail the runner who had attempted to tag up. So with 2 outs and nobody on Franklin Square’s batter hit a scorcher down towards the first base bag that Joey Pizzingrillo flagged down and stomped on first to end an incredible game.

The District 29 tournament is one of the toughest to win on Long Island with many competitive teams. The boys should be proud of their victory. Every boy on the team contributed in all of the wins whether it was on offense, defense or on the mound. The roster consisted of Kyle Quinn, Joe Philippas, Timothy Dehler, Peter Sceusa, Mike DeSimone, Joey Pizzingrillo, Nick Lavinio, Owen Prendergast, Liam McAndrews, Mike Goulard, Mikey Nygaard, Nolan Prendergast and Connor Molloy.

It is now on to Sectional play as Garden City sees action on July 31st against a team from South Queens. Good luck to the boys the rest of the way.