The #2 Rye Baseball team defeated #3 Nanuet in the first semifinals game of the Class A tournament on Saturday, May 24, topping the Knights 4-1. The win pushes the Garnets to the winner’s bracket of the “Final Four”, which means they are two wins away from a sectional championship.
Jack Sheridan dominated on the mound, hitting spots and changing speeds throughout seven innings of one run baseball. His only blemish was an unearned run against in the fifth inning. The senior struck out three and did not walk any.
Charlie Rupp belted a solo home run in the bottom of the fifth inning to increase Rye’s lead from 3-1 to 4-1 and remove any real thought of late-inning drama. Nolan Hutson had two hits and Jackson Pineault had two RBIs in a relatively quiet day from the offense outside of Rupp’s longball.
The Garnets (19-3) have won fifteen consecutive games since returning from their Disney excursion on April 17. Rye advances to the winner’s bracket finals in the Class A bracket, where they travel to face the top-seeded Walter Panas Panthers on Tuesday, May 27. If Rye wins, they play the winner of Panas vs Nanuet/Eastchester in the finals, needing to avoid losing two consecutive games in the double elimination format. If Rye loses on Tuesday, they turn their focus to the winner of Eastchester and Nanuet in the loser’s bracket finals. The Garnets would then have to win that game and two straight against Panas to follow to claim the championship.
