Sandy is Stellar for Molloy-Stanner ace quiets Iona Prep as bats come alive

Molloy ace Sandy Sussman says the pressure of an elimination game is equivalent to the regular season when he toes the rubber - he just wants to win. Perhaps, but for the third straight time, with Molloy’s backs up against the wall, with one more defeat meaning the end of their season - and several high school careers including Sussman’s - he delivered.
“I guess there’s a little bit of pressure,” he conceded, “especially for the seniors, because it could be our last game.”
The Marist-bound southpaw delivered a complete-game six-hitter, striking out nine, as the Stanners broke open a close game late, blasting Iona Prep, 11-2, Tuesday, June 6th at Fordham University in the CHSAA intersectional playoffs. They advance to face Regis - the team that beat them at the outset of the double elimination tournament - this week, with one more win earning them a berth in their first city championship game berth since the Briarwood school won it all in 2002.
“I knew he’d be fine, no matter what happened,” Molloy catcher Greg Conway said. “We just rode Sandy through it.”
Sussman wasn’t his sharpest against the Gaels (15-8); not like when he shutdown Xaverian a week ago, or topped Mount St. Michael’s the weekend before, each in must-win situations. His fastball sailed, his curveball hung and his change-up stayed up.
Despite all this, and even with Sussman hitting a few batters and walking four, he went the distance, wiggling out of a pair of bases-loaded jams in the second and fifth. “Once Sandy gets in trouble, he does his best,” said Conway, who had two hits and drove in a pair of runs.
The Stanners had scored just six runs in their last two victories, both one-run wins. But against the Gaels, they scored single unearned runs in the first and third, before exploding for nine runs in the final three frames. Conway, who had struggled at the plate since he slightly pulled a lower back muscle late in the regular season, ignited the Stanner (15-7) uprising with a two-run ground rule double. Andrew Lontos followed with another two-run two-bagger.
“I was looking for a pitch to hit, I got it and drove it,” he said. “We knew our bats would come out of it eventually.”