Long Beach rallies past Oceanside

Oceanside entered the Nassau Class AA softball playoffs on the strength of a three-game winning streak and looked poised for a trip to the semifinals after building a three-run lead five innings into last Monday’s quarterfinal game against visiting Long Beach.

However, the Lady Sailors were unable to slam the door and suffered a heartbreaking ending as the Lady Marines scored once in the sixth and exploded for five runs on seven hits in the seventh to advance with a 7-4 victory.

“We just have to give them all the credit,” Supple said. “They came up with the big hits when they needed to. That’s why they’re a great team year after year. I thought we played really well for six innings. The last three outs are always the toughest.”

The winning rally started with an infield single by Julianna Zaharias. “We needed some kind of spark, and Julianna got us going,” Long Beach coach Carmine Verde said. “We really started to feed off the energy after Kelsey [Larson] followed with a walk.”

With runners on first and second, Kelsey McLaughlin hit a comebacker off the leg of Oceanside pitcher Ashley Davis that rolled between shortstop and third for another infield single. After Zaharias scored on an error, Annie Winerip lined a one-out single over short to bring home Larson to make it 4-4. Brianna Rivera then followed with a sharp single to plate McLaughlin with the eventual winning run. A sacrifice fly by Heather Weinstein and run-scoring single by Caitlin O’Connell provided insurance runs for Long Beach pitcher Ashley Martin.

“Oceanside’s a tough team and we played three great games against them,” Verde said. “We split during the regular season and we knew we had our work cut out today. All game long I kept preaching to the girls to ‘get in the box and have a good at-bat.’ We looked deflated after the fifth inning, but to the girls’ credit they never quit.”

The Lady Marines led on the first pitch of the game when Larson tripled and scored on an error, but Davis answered in the bottom of the first with a solo homer and allowed just one hit over the next four innings. 

Oceanside’s aggressive baserunning helped it to a three-run fourth that gave it a 4-1 lead. Deanna Viola and Davis got the rally started with back-to-back singles and each advanced with a stolen base. With one out, Kristen Gallub squeezed home Viola with a perfect bunt while Davis moved to third. Davis raced home on an infield grounder by Megan McNamara, and Arianna DeMarzo’s sac fly knocked in Gallub.

But Martin, who struck out eight and walked only one, allowed only one baserunner over the final three innings.

Long Beach will play top-seeded MacArthur in a semifinal game Thursday at Mitchel Athletic Complex at 4 p.m.