Marcello Masonry sweeps fifth straight title

GEORGE FAELLA PHOTO
John Hansen, who drove a hit past third base on this swing, helped Marcello Masonry sweep Skippers for its fifth straight Greenport Men’s Softball League championship.

They did all the little things it takes to win a championship.

Marcello Masonry, behind the smart pitching of John Hansen and timely hitting throughout its potent lineup, beat Skippers, 8-4, last Wednesday night to sweep the Greenport Men’s Softball League championship series, three games to none. It is the club’s fifth straight league championship.

This game, like the previous two, was a tight one.

Marcello led by 4-2 going into the sixth inning when it tallied four more runs to clinch the championship. Derek Genoino and Bobby Marcello both launched two-run homers in the sixth to turn out the lights on Skippers’ dream of a comeback.

“We played good defensively, but we left too many men on base,” said Skippers pitcher John Brush. “We had 12 hits and left 14 men on base. We just didn’t get the key hits when we needed them.”

Marcello, the second seed, took a 1-0 lead in the top of the first inning on Herb Loper’s home run. Marcello added another run in the third, as John Hansen, Loper, Brian Anderson and Scott Anderson all singled. Its lead grew to 4-0 in the fourth when Roger Turbush smacked a two-run homer. Marcello threatened to score even more before Brush got out of the jam, inducing a 6-4-3 double play.

Skippers, the top seed, got on the scoreboard in the fourth. Pat Gagen doubled and scored on Chris Hansen’s single.

John Brush Jr. singled in a run in the fifth when Skippers pulled to within 4-2. But Genoino and Bobby Marcello’s round-trippers in the sixth insured the win.

Skippers added two final runs in its half of the sixth on singles by Hansen and Bob Neese, but it wasn’t nearly enough. John Hansen did a masterful job pitching around the dangerous part of the Skippers lineup. While he issued numerous walks, he got the big outs when he needed them.

After losing the opening game of the series on Aug. 9 to Marcello, 21-16, Skippers quickly fell behind, 7-2, in the second inning of Game 2 the next night. A stirring four-run rally in the fifth pulled Skippers within 8-7. But every time in this series when Marcello was challenged, it responded, this time with four more runs in the bottom of the sixth to secure a 12-7 win.

Turbush lined a two-run single and Bobby Marcello laced a two-run double in that decisive sixth inning to seal the victory and pull Marcello Masonry to within one game of the championship.

Skippers had taken a quick 2-0 lead in the first on Mark Berry’s sacrifice fly and Chris Hansen’s double.

Marcello answered right back with five in the bottom of the first, as Turbush, Bobby Marcello, Loper, John Hansen and Scott Anderson all had run-scoring hits. Loper drilled a two-run homer in the second to make it 7-2. Keith Sweat hit a solo homer for Skippers in the fourth to slice the deficit to 7-3. In the bottom of the inning, Genoino hit a solo blast of his own as Marcello led, 8-3.

But in the fifth, Skippers climbed right back into it, scoring four runs. Ev Corwin ripped a two-run single, Matt Verity singled home a run and Sweat hit a sacrifice fly to trim Marcello’s lead to 8-7.

Brush said his team “was right back in it.”

They were back in it until Marcello lowered the boom with the four runs in the last of the sixth.

All series long, Marcello Masonry made all the big plays when it needed them.

“We had every opportunity to win,” Brush said. “We just didn’t do it.”

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Chris Lucarelli of Skippers won the award for the league’s highest batting average. He hit .710