First Posted: 7/15/2014
The Greater Pittston American Legion baseball season came to an end with consecutive losses in the Wyoming Valley League Senior playoffs.
Greater Pittston won its opener in the four-team playoff, but wound up in third place in the tournament to determine which team joined unbeaten Swoyersville in representing the league at the Region 5 Tournament.
Eventual champion Nanticoke defeated Greater Pittston, 6-1, July 13 in the winners’ bracket final, then Tunkhannock provided the season-ending defeat, 3-1, Monday in an elimination game.
Nanticoke 6
Greater Pittston 1
Nanticoke scored in each of the first four innings as Nanticoke defeated Greater Pittston, 6-1.
Greater Pittston trailed, 5-0, before scoring an unearned run in the top of the fourth.
Leadoff hitter Tyler Myers went 3-for-4 with three runs and two triples to lead Nanticoke. Mike Bugonowicz drove in three runs.
Lou Tzomalis went 2-for-2 and scored the only run for Greater Pittston. Jeremy Zezza also had two hits.
Kyle Charney pitched three innings of relief, giving up just one run on two hits.
Tunkhannock 3
Greater Pittston 1
Cody Brown’s two-run, sixth-inning double lifted Tunkhannock over Greater Pittston, 3-1, to end Greater Pittston’s defense of the tournament and Region 5 titles.
Greater Pittston’s only run scored on a bases-loaded groundball that turned into a triple play when Jake Granteed unsuccessfully to score from second base while Tunkhannock was recording outs at second and first bases.
Jeremy Zezza pitched a complete game in the loss.
Jordan Zezza, who scored the only run, and Tyler Mitchell had doubles in the loss.
“I’m proud of them because they never quit,” Greater Pittston manager Jerry Ranieli told the Times Leader. “They battled hard. We didn’t have the postgrads and the pitching we had last year, but they came and played hard every game.
“That’s all I could ask for as a manager.”
Greater Pittston had won the league’s postseason tournament the last two years, six times since 2002 and eight times since 1997.
