South Side captures home finale

On May 2, the Glen Cove Big Red baseball team traveled to Barasch Field, home of the South Side Cyclones, looking to take the middle game of last week’s Conference A-III series.

Glen Cove dropped the series opener, 4-3, the previous day and sent out Anthony Rant to work off the rubber for the squad, while South Side coach Tom Smith gave the nod to workhorse Kenny Hoefer. The hosts outperformed Glen Cove, earning the 10-0 victory and a chance to sweep.

Both starting pitchers hit leadoff for their respective clubs, and each earned a hit in their first at-bat to try and spark an early run. Rant, although saddled with the loss, worked well through his outing, only allowing one inning to get out of hand. Sans that, Rant mixed his pitches well and kept hitters off balance, accumulating 7 K’s over 4 2/3 innings pitched.

With a few runs on the board, though, all South Side had to do was rely on its pitcher who has been leaned on heavily this season for the Cyclones. “Kenny’s been our horse. He’s been phenomenal all year long,” Smith said. “He’s been our guy the past two seasons and he’s such a strong competitor. There’s nothing more he wanted then the ball in his hand today.”

With the ball in his hand, Hoefer threw a complete game one-hit, one-walk shutout with 10 strikeouts. Hoefer allowed the first batter of the game to get on and since then he buckled down and forced opposing batters to make off-balance contact, leading to 19 straight outs before he allowed a walk in the last half inning.

Glen Cove played hard despite its offensive struggles. Defensively, the visitors were hustling for every ball and shortstop Victor Cintron made a highlight reel relay throw to home in the bottom of the first inning to freeze a South Side runner heading to the plate.

Unfortunately, Glen Cove lost starting center fielder Kevin Monahan during a huge hustle play in dead center when Monahan laid out for a fly ball. Monahan was carried off the field by his band of brothers as the South Side team and crowd alike rose and applauded for the passion and effort of the outfielder.

Rant then replaced him in center field as Robert McCarthy came in to pitch in the bottom of the fifth with two outs. McCarthy made quick work of Hoefer to get out of the inning.

South Side’s John Healy had two deep triples in the gap, and Dylan O’Leary added two hits.

Coach Smith said after the game he wanted to give the seniors a parting gift to remember, so each senior member of the Cyclones (4-11) started the home finale.

“(The seniors) set the tone early. They drove in some early runs…These guys getting to play in their last home game with their friends and family watching, on this beautiful day, they really were locked in from the moment we got here,” Smith said.