Tigers Baseball Season Ends in 9-inning Pitchers Duel in Section 1 Finals
The White Plains High School Baseball Team can hold their heads high. The Tigers 2017 season ended with a 2-0 loss in nine innings to Arlington High School at Dutchess Stadium, after reaching the Section 1 Championship Game for the first time since 1979.
Tigers’ senior pitcher Gehrig Hauser pitched the game of his life but was outdueled by Admirals senior pitcher Rob Fratarcangeli.
Hauser stifled the Admirals line-up throughout the game while striking out 12, walking none and allowing only three hits until the ninth inning. The 10th seeded Admirals (15-8) got another three hits off Hauser in the top of the ninth, including a game-winning two-run triple by Mike Bulgia, which gave the Admirals their first Section 1 Championship since 2013.
Fratarcangeli finished the extra innings game for the nine-inning complete game win. The Admirals senior gave up five hits, three walks and struck-out seven Tigers. Nonetheless, Fratarcangeli’s only advantages over Hauser in this pitching duel was that he stranded nine Tigers on base and his team got the big hit from Bulgia in the game.
The fifth seeded Tigers (16-8) just could not get that key hit against the Admirals, as they did in their Section 1 Semifinals win over ninth-seeded Mahopac High School, on Wednesday, May 24, at WPHS.
Tigers catcher Matt Dorchak had two RBI singles, including a hit-and-run called by Head Coach Marcel Galligani that scored a run in the fifth inning. First baseman Spencer Lodes slammed a two-run homerun over the centerfield fence in the sixth inning, which led to an 8-0 win for the Tigers.
But these key hits just did not come for White Plains against the Admirals in the Section 1 AA Championship game. The Tigers stranded runners on second and third base in the second inning and had two runners on base and nobody out in the fourth inning but were blanked by Fratarcangeli and good defense by the Admirals.
“I felt good the whole way. I knew my pitch count was around 120, but I felt good, I did not want to be taken out,” said Fratarcangeli, who was the MVP of the Championship Game. Admirals Head Coach Darrell Flynn said of Hauser’s 118-pitch performance for the Tigers. “That pitcher, man, you have to give it up to him. He had us confused all day. We were finally able to get to him in the ninth,” said Flynn.
“If I would have walked out to that mound to take him out of that game, we would have had a fist fight,” commented Galligani, regarding Hauser. “He was not going to let me take him out of that game and by the way he was throwing, I was not going to take him out. Gehrig was throwing great, he was shutting them down,” said the Tigers Head Coach.
Galligani and the 2017 Tigers advanced the White Plains High School Varsity Baseball Program to the Section 1 Finals for the first time since 1979. Moreover, they were maybe a hit or a pitch away from capturing the AA Title. “I am proud of these guys. I told them before we hit in that last at bat, that regardless of the result that I loved them and was proud of them,” said Galligani.
