St. Ephrem Mets take home championship

The St. Ephrem Mets are winners, defeating the St. Bernadette Knights in June to win the local championship.

The Mets played a great season, and took the third place seed for the playoffs. The first playoff game was on a sunny day down at the team’s home field against the St. Anselm Lady Hawks. St Ephrem won, 15-0.

Then, the team took on the St. Anselm Panthers; in the regular season, the St. Ephrem team had lost to them twice and won against them once. It was a very tough game played right in Bay Ridge, at 79^th Street and Shore Road Park.

It was a very intense game. St. Anselm’s, being the second place team from the regular season, had home team advantage. In the seventh inning, they were down by one run, had two outs and runners on first and second. The final out was caught by Jessica Reilly as the Mets sailed to victory.

The next game was against the first place team — the St. Bernadette Knights. The St. Ephrem Mets hadn’t won a game against them in the regular season; however, two years ago, the St. Ephrem team had defeated the St. Bernadette team in the championship.

The game was held originally on Thursday June 13, which was a rainy day. The game was played on a field with terrible conditions until the third inning when a downpour began, forcing a postponement. The game began at the third inning the following Monday at St. Bernadette’s home field. The St. Ephrem Mets lost that night, 9-4.

With a double elimination playoff, the Mets played the St. Anselm Panthers a second time. In the first inning, the bases were loaded for Antoinette Marotto who hit a grand slam into left center field.

The following inning, Emily Manti did the same and hit another grand slam! In the top of the second inning, the St. Ephrem Mets were up by 12 runs. The team’s defensive was fierce, and allowed few errors. St. Ephrem won the game 18-14.

The next game was played on Friday June 21 at St. Athanasius’ field. In the first few innings, the players from St. Ephrem had their bats swinging, and St. Bernadette was 12 runs behind in the third inning! The pitching by Reilly was phenomenal, and the whole field behind her only allowed 10 runs by St. Bernadette as St. Ephrem took the game.

The playoff game on Sunday saw very tough defense from both teams. The St. Ephrem players worked many walks from St. Bernadette pitchers, scoring a grand total of 11 runs, while St. Bernadette scored seven.

The third out in the last inning was a soft grounder that was hit to Reilly who gently flipped it to Alexa Malerba at first base. The whole team came running onto the field in excitement and hugged Malerba and Reilly. They walked back into the dugout where they found Coach Pat Malerba awaiting them. He was eager to celebrate and sprayed the team with seltzer.