East Hampton Baseball Clinches First Postseason Berth In 11 Years

There wasn’t much celebrating for the East Hampton baseball team after having defeated host Amityville, 15-2, this past Thursday, April 14. The Bonackers had finally broken an 11-year absence from postseason play with the victory, and improved to a perfect 9-0 start to the season.

As the players explained after the game, they were well aware of what they just accomplished, they simply want more.

“Everybody is happy, but we’re not settled,” said junior Jack Dickinson, who hit a three-run home as part of an eight-run Bonac seventh inning. “We know that the next three series are going to be harder than what we played. We’re ready to go back and practice and grind. We’re not settled on playoffs. We can win our league, we want to win our league, we want to beat everybody and we can beat everybody. We’ve got great arms and we’re swinging the bat real well and we’re not afraid of any team. We’re ready to go.”

The numbers back Dickinson’s thoughts — the Bonackers outscored their first three opponents (Harborfields, Islip, Amityville), 93-17 — and Thursday’s game was just an example of what they’ve accomplished thus far. Freshman Carter Dickinson was hit by a pitch to force in a run in the top of the first inning to give East Hampton an early 1-0 lead, then senior Avery Siska mashed a grand slam — his second in as many days — to deep left field to quickly make it a 5-0 ball game.

East Hampton senior starting pitcher Colin Ruddy continued his dominance on the mound. He was perfect through five innings and struck out 11 before head coach Vinny Alversa pulled him. While that may be a surprise to some, the plan going into the game was to take Ruddy out even earlier to get some more pitchers some work, but he was throwing so well Ruddy was able to extend his playing time a bit. Despite the perfect game, Alversa said it was a no-brainer to take him out with bigger and greater things, hopefully, down the road for both Ruddy and the team. Zach Dodge, in just the second time toeing a varsity rubber, relieved Ruddy and pitched the final two innings.

“That’s him to a T,” Alversa said of Ruddy. “We’ve gotten what we needed, let’s go. And for Zach to come in, no matter who it’s against, throw strikes for us, he did a good job. Next week is a big week. The rest of the weeks are big weeks.”

East Hampton is well aware that the second half of its schedule will be much more competitive, facing Miller Place (6-0 overall), Sayville (8-0) and Mount Sinai (3-3) in the coming weeks — the Bonackers opened a three-game set with Miller Place on Tuesday. But Alversa said qualifying for playoffs this early in the season is certainly a feat in and of itself, no matter who their opponents were. It may have even been a bit unexpected.

“I think in the beginning of the season, me and [assistant coach Henry Meyer] were, like, ‘All right, if we can get to 4-2, or get at least five wins, the second half of the season, we’ll have a shot,’” he explained. “But these guys came right out of the gates. Pitching is our strength, and we’ve had some timely hitting, too.

“Second half is going to be tough, but as long as they stay focused, I think we can do well,” he said. “With Ruddy, Jack and Will [Darrell] and Hunter [Eberhart] on the mound, we got a shot in a playoff game.”

For the team’s two seniors who have been on the team for multiple seasons now, in Ruddy and Siska, making the postseason has been a long time coming and they’re certainly happy for accomplishing what has been a longtime goal.

“It’s huge,” Ruddy said. “We’ve come a long way as a program. I’ve been on the team since I was in eighth grade, didn’t win much then. We only beat Amityville the three games then, and then each year we got better. Each year the kids and our group of guys became more determined to earn this. Last year with COVID, the scheduling and everything was all messed up. But this year at the start of our winter workout sessions, we knew we had one goal this year and that was to make playoffs.

“Me and Avery, as seniors, it’s our last year, we just want to make it a habit for this program,” he continued. “Have us set the goal for every team behind us, make this a recurring thing to make playoffs and become a powerhouse program like other schools.”

Siska reiterated his teammate’s points, but also said the team dynamic is one of the best it’s been in years and everyone really gets along, which makes it that much better.

“I’m just super, super proud of these guys because everyone really wants to come and win and participate and be a team,” he said. “We really just stepped it up this year.”

Now that they’ve guaranteed themselves a playoff spot by winning half of their games, the Bonackers will now play for a high seed in the playoffs so they can get a home playoff game. And, as the players noted themselves, a league title is certainly a possibility.

The season isn’t over now that the team has clinched. In fact, it’s quite the opposite.

“The real season begins now,” Alversa said. “We took care of what we needed to. These guys are grinding right now and we’ve just got to keep them on it.”