Bucks hit bad patch at mid-season
The Shelter Island Bucks dropped to third place in the Hampton Collegiate Baseball League after losing three consecutive games this week.
On Wednesday, June 26, the Bucks squared off against the North Fork Ospreys at Fiske Field.
Shelter Island took a 2-0 lead in the bottom of the second inning when John Shields (Florida Manatee-Sarasota) slammed his second homer of the season.
North Fork answered with two runs in the top of the third, and first-baseman Anthony Fontana (Furman) launched a 2-run homer in the fourth to put the Ospreys up 4-2.
A fifth-inning double by Shelter Island’s Bryce Daniel (Dartmouth) cut the lead to 4-3, but the Ospreys took control of the game with 4 runs in the top of the seventh and cruised to a 9-4 victory, snapping a three-game Bucks winning streak.
On Thursday, the Bucks returned to Fiske Field to take on the Long Island Road Warriors.
Shelter Island once again leapt out to an early lead, plating 2 runs on a bases-loaded single by Mike Guanci Jr. (Fordham) in the bottom of the first. Andy Semo’s (Fordham) sacrifice fly put the Bucks ahead 3-0 entering the middle innings.
But Long Island trimmed the lead to 3-2 on a fifth-inning single by Jake Liberatore (Stetson), and surged ahead in the sixth, taking advantage of four Buck errors to score 7 runs. The Warriors went on to claim a 10-5 win.
On Saturday evening, the Bucks traveled to Cochran Park to take on the Ospreys.
Bucks starting pitcher Thomas Ippolito, who entered the game as the HCBL leader in wins and strikeouts, surrendered 3 runs on four hits in the first inning as the Ospreys claimed a 3-0 lead and coasted to a 7-2 victory.
The loss dropped the Bucks to 12-7. Midway through the 40-game season, Shelter Island stands in third-place in the HCBL, a half-game behind the Riverhead Tomcats and four games behind the first-place Westhampton Aviators.
The top five teams in the division will make the postseason.
This week, the Bucks return to Fiske Field to take on the Aviators on Wednesday, July 3 at 5 p.m., and the fourth-place Sag Harbor Whalers on July 4 at 11 a.m.
The Bucks play a doubleheader against the Southampton Breakers at Fiske Field on Sunday, July 7.
