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By Vinny Messana
It felt more like a December afternoon, but Bayport-Blue Point’s Ryan Costa pitched like he was in midseason form. The righthander went the distance, striking out six and allowing just one unearned run on Tuesday in the Phantoms’ 9-1 win over Center Moriches.
Costa was matched up against Center Moriches hurler Joey Hiller and the teams traded zeros for the first two innings, before Center Moriches got on the board in the top of the third. After Leyton Pulsipher dribbled one out in front of home plate and reached to lead off the inning, he stole second and scored on Gavin DeRosa’s RBI single.
At that moment, it appeared that it might be a pitcher’s duel, but the game completely shifted in the home half of the third.
Costa led things off with a walk, and then stole second. He advanced on an error and scored on a perfectly executed squeeze play by Trey McGowan to tie the game at 1-1. Guy Kiesel then reached on another Center Moriches fielding error to bring in the second run, and Brady Clark followed with a sacrifice fly to right field to make it 3-1.
The Phantoms added two more runs that inning.
Costa worked around a one-out hit by pitch in the fourth to put up a scoreless inning and he continued to put up zeros after that. He worked around a single to Louie Iannachino and a fielding error in the fifth, before firing a 1-2-3 sixth inning and working around a single to Pulsipher in the seventh inning.
The Phantoms added three runs in the sixth inning to put the game out of reach. RBI singles by Kiesel and Clark, along with a wild pitch to score Clark was how the damage was done.
The Phantoms finished the game with just five hits, but certainly made the most of their hits, improving to 7-3 on the season.
Featured photo: Ryan Costa of Bayport-Blue Point (Twitter/@axcessbaseball)
