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Late inning collapse ends memorable year for IN-Tech baseball team, Panthers’ suffer second playoff elimination in strange three-day span

By Jason Eisenberg

June 6, 2011 -- What is the only feeling worse for a high school sports team than the sting of being ousted from a single-elimination postseason tournament? The answer: the experience of getting knocked out of the playoffs twice in the same year.  

Impossible you say? Tell that to the IN-Tech Academy baseball team, which had the rare misfortune of seeing its dreams of a New York City “B Division” championship go up in smoke on two separate occasions last week.

This unusual turn of events played out over a span of three days. It all began on Tuesday when the 14th-seeded Panthers thought their season had come to an end following an 8-4 loss to third-seeded Bathgate in the second round of the playoffs. However, in a shocking twist of fate, the local team would suddenly be thrust right back in to contention less than 24 hours later. 

According to IN-Tech athletic director Alex Marrero, he received a call from PSAL baseball commissioner Bob Pertsas the very next day and was informed that the previous game was being ruled a forfeit in favor of the Panthers. Apparently, someone from Bathgate’s own campus had called in to the PSAL and reported that there was a player on the field after being absent from school that day -- something strictly prohibited by the rulebook. As a result, this unnamed athlete was deemed ineligible to participate in the contest and IN-Tech would automatically move on to the quarterfinals in place of Bathgate.

With the next round only one day away, first-year head coach John Spadaccini scrambled to gather his players after school on Wednesday and held an impromptu practice for two-and-a-half hours to get the team re-focused for an unexpected showdown with 11th-seed Martin Van Buren.

“I was completely shocked when I first found out and then the kids were very excited and enthusiastic when I told them,” said Coach Spadaccini. “You almost never hear about something like this happening. Obviously, it is not really the ideal way you want to get that second chance, but when given another opportunity, you are always going to take it.”

Feeding off the adrenaline of being back on the diamond, IN-Tech quickly jumped out to a 4-0 lead during the first inning of Thursday’s battle with Van Buren. From there, the Panthers continued to get timely hitting and each time their opponents got on the scoresheet, the local team managed to respond by getting the runs right back.

With a 10-5 advantage entering the bottom of the sixth, IN-Tech had gone from dead-and-buried to being six outs from the city semifinals in a period of just 48 hours. Unfortunately, the story of this three-day roller coaster ride would not feature a fairytale ending for the Panthers. A combination of fielding errors, walks and hit batters led to six unanswered runs by Van Buren over the final two frames. The end result was a devastating 11-10 defeat that eliminated IN-Tech for a second time.        

“I do not want to take all the credit away from Van Buren because they are a good team, but we really did beat ourselves today,” said Coach Spadaccini. “This was a different feeling, to be so close to the semis and have it slip out of your hands, it was definitely a lot harder to take than what happened on Tuesday. I could see it was tough on the kids to go through that all over again, and as you would expect, it was a long ride home from Brooklyn.”

Once the heartbreak of this collapse and the pain from experiencing two straight playoff ousters begins to fade away, the Panthers will be able to look back on this season and ahead to next year with pride and optimism. To put in perspective how successful IN-Tech’s 2011 campaign was, consider that in each of the previous three seasons, the team had lost at least its first three games on the schedule. This year, the Panthers lost just three times the whole season, while amassing a final record of 12-3 -- the best mark in the young program’s history -- and finished in second place within the Bronx “B” North Division, behind only top-seeded Adlai Stevenson.

Amazingly, the squad will remain almost entirely intact for next season, with David Herrera as the lone graduating senior. Herrera had a sensational showing in 2011, batting over .400 in the regular season and over .500 in the three playoff games, with a team-high 15 stolen bases.

However, the Panthers will return every other key member of the core, including sophomore Albert Lugo (.500, 10 RBIs in 12 games), sophomore catcher Austin Rivera (.303), junior Christopher Abreu (.321, 10 stolen bases) and junior Michael Vargas (.324). Additionally, IN-Tech will also get back its top three pitchers in junior Eric Valdez (3-0, 2.93 ERA, 24 Ks in 19 innings), junior Christopher Bernier (4-0, 1.35 ERA, 32 Ks in 26 innings) and Abreu (2-0, 1.75 ERA, 17 Ks in 16 innings).    

“How can you not be happy about having the best season in program history? These guys fought hard every game, always stuck together and never gave up, but most importantly they grew as players and matured on the field,” said Coach Spadaccini. “David is one of our top hitters and our captain, so his talent and leadership will be missed very much, but I am definitely excited to be getting 15 juniors back, you really cannot beat that. If they continue to improve like they did this year, we are going to be tough to beat and can absolutely contend for the city title.”