By Elio Velez
The Bayside softball team has come up with plenty of offensive firepower this season en route to winning the PSAL Queens A-I division title.
But on May 22, the Commodores witnessed visiting Susan Wagner get their bats rolling like Bayside is used to seeing itself do against others. Falcons catcher Danielle Drucker recorded three triples and drove in four runs to power No. 5-seeded Wagner to a 15-8 win over No. 4 Bayside in the Class A quarterfinals.
It was an emotional end to the season for the young and talented Commodores (17-2) in their attempt to reach the semifinals for the first time since 2008 with Coach Steve Piorkowski returning after battling cancer last year.
“It was a very tough loss,” said Bayside starting pitcher Heidi Gomez, who took the loss. “We tried and we could have done better but we did our best.”
Bayside got an early emotional lift on a leadoff home run by shortstop Tara Bernstein in the bottom of the first inning. That advantage was short-lived.
Ninth-place hitter Kayla-Ashley Fred also had three hits and smacked a two-run homer to right field off Gomez in the top of the second to give Wagner (15-4) a 4-1 lead. Bayside was held in check by freshman pitcher Antoinette Simonetti, who pitched out of trouble for most of the day despite eight errors committed defensively by Wagner.
Piorkowski has been around long enough to know his young team had to play well with the competition getting tougher as the playoffs progressed. Committing three errors defensively and getting some base running mistakes didn’t help Bayside’s cause.
“It just comes down to execution. It’s a pretty simple game,” Piorkowski said. “You have pitching and catching and defense. It involves catching the ball and throwing the ball and we didn’t execute.”
The last chance for Bayside to get back into the ball game was when Bernstein drove home Taylor Moy and Amanda Arenas with a two-run triple and scored on a throwing error to cut the Wagner lead to 9-5. The Falcons would extend their lead by plating seven more runs in the sixth to take a 14-5 lead.
The encouraging thing for Bayside is that the entire lineup, excluding senior left fielder Britany Naposki, returns next season. Bernstein and her teammates are confident this group can progress next season and make a concerted run at winning a championship.
“I’m hoping next year to meet whoever at St. John’s in the championship game,” Bernstein said. “We got a young team right now and we’re going to get more young players next year and bring the seniors back, so we’re going to try to end it off good.”
