As of April 27, the Oyster Bay High School varsity baseball team had one win and was looking at a losing season, one in which they could have missed the playoffs for the first time in a long time. Since then, the team has been on fire. They won six out of their last eight games to make the playoffs as the number four seed.
Included in this regular season ending streak was a come-from-behind win against East Rockaway, where they were down 6-2, only to come back and win 13-10. The hero that day was Derek Vickers, who came in the game as a relief pitcher and earned his first varsity win. Also in that streak came a 1-0 win over Wheatley, which was Coach Jay Davis’ 400th victory as coach of Oyster Bay varsity baseball. The hero that day was Stephen Spiegel, who kept the defending county champs scoreless for his complete game victory, giving up just three hits and striking out 12.
The Baymen faced the number one seed Cold Spring Harbor in the first round of the playoffs in a best of three series. Cold Spring Harbor had just moved down from the A division and had won the league. The Baymen got the upset in game one by a score of 5-1 behind another strong pitching performance by Spiegel. Game two of this series was one for the ages. It took 14 innings and two days to complete. Jackson O’Neill, James Losee and Harrison Treble all pitched in this epic battle. Things did not look good for the Baymen in the13th inning, when Cold Spring Harbor took a two-run lead in the top half of the inning. With two outs, the Baymen came charging back to tie the score with three consecutive hits by Treble, Vickers and Kal Lipsman. With two outs in the 14th inning, Matt Santos got a base hit and promptly stole second base. Losee sealed the sweep with a walk-off hit to right. When Santos slid home ahead of the tag, the home crowd erupted and the Baymen were on their way to the best of three County Championship series vs. Carle Place at Hofstra.
The Baymen were swept by Carle Place in a three-game series earlier in the season and things didn’t look good when they dropped game one at Hofstra, 9-2. The Baymen took a two-run lead in the first inning of game two on three hits by O’Neill, Treble and Spiegel. That was all that pitcher Losee would need, as he only allowed one run in a complete game effort. The Baymen tacked on three more insurance runs for the 5-1 victory and the series was tied.
Game three was another one for the ages. Carle Place scored one in the first inning. The Baymen came back with two in the second inning on a base hit by Kyle Schindler. Carle Place tied it up in the fifth inning and the game went into extra innings. Vickers scored in the eighth inning when Schindler, again, came through with a base hit. As the visiting team, the Baymen still needed three outs before they could celebrate. Starting pitcher O’Neill, a two-time all-county pitcher coming into this season, was still on the mound to start the eighth. In the biggest game of his career, O’Neill gave up only one earned run. Carle Place would not go down without a fight as they got runners on first and second with no outs. Fortunately for the Baymen, they had another all-county pitcher waiting to come in and save the game, the season and the championship. Spiegel came in and induced a fly ball from the first batter he faced. Both runners advanced on the play. Now Carle Place had the tying run on third, the winning run on second and only one out. Spiegel promptly struck out the next two batters and the Baymen celebrated another county title.
The Baymen have won seven county titles in the last nine years.
