The Greater Pittston Senior American Legion Baseball team returned to Northeastern Pennsylvania Sunday after finishing the longest – and most successful season – in program history as the third-place team in the Mid-Atlantic Regional.
Fox Post from Delaware broke away from a tie over the final two innings to defeat Greater Pittston 8-3 in the Saturday night elimination bracket final in Worcester, Mass.
Greater Pittston went 2-2 in the tournament for six state champions with its only losses in the double-elimination event coming against second-place Fox Post and in the opener against eventual champion Whitehouse from New Jersey.
“When you get to this stage, you’re playing a lot of teams that have been here a lot,” Greater Pittston manager Steve Homza said in a Sunday phone interview. “Those are national programs. This is the first time that we have ever won a state tournament, so it was the first time we were playing on a national stage.
“I told them, ‘You made this program have the potential of being a national program.’ ”
The Wyoming Valley League, Region 5 and Pennsylvania champions scored twice in the bottom of the fifth to force a 3-3 tie.
Fox Post went in front to stay with four runs in the sixth and added another in the seventh.
Ryan Perkins drove in three runs with a double, then scored on a Carter Bean single for Fox Post in the sixth.
Beau Widdick went 4-for-4 with a triple and RBI in the finale for Greater Pittston, which finished 28-6. The University of Massachusetts commit from Pittston Area ended the season as the team’s leading hitter with 45 RBI and a .524 batting average.
Nick Innamorati, who scored twice, and Dom Salvo, who drove in a run, each had two singles.
Fox Post pitcher James Suhrbier went the distance, scattering nine hits. He struck out four and walked one.
Greater Pittston was hurt by four errors that led to four unearned runs.
Fox Post scored in the second and third innings.
Greater Pittston loaded the bases with none out in the first but could not score.
Innamorati and Widdick started both the first and third innings with consecutive singles. In the third, Innamorati scored on a Silvio Giardina sacrifice fly.
Fox Post increased its lead to 3-1 in the top of the fifth, but Greater Pittston answered in the bottom of the inning.
Innamorati was it by the first pitch of the inning and Widdick followed with a triple to right field.
Salvo’s single drove in Silvio Giardina, who reached when Widdick was thrown out at the plate on a groundball.
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