Story Created:
Jul 26, 2010 at 8:54 PM EST
Story Updated:
Jul 27, 2010 at 6:13 PM EST
UTICA, N.Y. (WKTV) - For the first time in eight years, Utica Post won the Section V Legion Baseball Championship, putting together a great weekend in Rome to get it done.
What was amazing was how they did it, winning three games on Sunday, beating Ilion and Whitesboro twice. UP had lost each of their previous three games to Ilion, including a 6-5 heartbreaker on Thursday in the tournament. Whitestown was previously undefeated in the tournament, and had a group that had come off a great high school season that made it to the state semifinals.
"Anytime you beat a close team around here, like whitesboro, new hartford, it's a great feeling. But we went out there, played our hardest and came out with a nice title," said Mike King.
One of the reasons for the turnaround was their hitting, led by super slugger Vin Gaetano. "We came out, our coach told us, put a couple more runs, move forward, sure enough they did," Gaetano said.
"We just stuck it out, we kept playing, never stopped trying and basically just came together as a team, pitching kept us in the ballgame and we hit the ball really good," added Mike Scotellaro.
Indeed, the pitchers came through as big as the hitters, with starters Ryan Donovan and Ryan Alesandro leading the charge for th rest of the staff, who also stepped it up. "It's all about getting on a roll. Every man contributing what they need to contribute, we just started rolling. You play loose, you play relaxed and that's how teams win," said Alesandro.
Donovan was just happy to have won it saying, "It's like a weight lifted off your shoulders, it was unreal, thinking about all we've been through, especially in just the last weekend, with the rainouts and everything. What we did will go down in history as one of the great playoff performances."
Manager Greg Gaeta summed it all up, saying "We did everything well, picked a good day, we played about 18 innings, 3 games, picked a good day to do everything well."
But Utica doesn't have time to enjoy the District title, as they head for the state tournament in Newburgh on Tuesday, and play their first game Wednesday morning at 9:30.
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