Two teams headed to the Nassau Class AAA baseball playoffs but jockeying for seeding took turns beating each other in the first two games of last week’s series before East Meadow got the best of Baldwin in the May 2 finale.
Senior Christian Brennan allowed two runs and scattered five hits over five innings to earn the win on the mound for the Jets, who broke open a close game with three runs in the top of the sixth inning of a 6-2 road victory.
Sophomore leadoff hitter Trevor Smith went 3-for-4 and scored three runs and junior Owen Smith and freshman Dom Longardino both had a pair of RBIs as East Meadow improved to 5-8-1 and secured any possible tiebreaker over the Bruins, who enter the final week of the regular season at 6-7-1.
“This was the cleanest of the three games this week,” East Meadow coach Vin Mascia said. “We played a pretty good game all around. Christian gave us five good innings and we hit the ball well one through nine.”
Baldwin trailed 3-0 after Longardino’s two-run double in the first and senior shortstop Kevin Canto’s run-scoring single in the second, but cut the margin to one with a pair of runs in the home half of the fourth. Senior catcher Mario Garcia singled with one out and sophomore third baseman Ryan Healey followed with a double. Sophomore Jacob Lopez drilled a two-run single to make it 3-2, although it was a close as the Bruins could get.