Lucey saves Fairport’s season

By PAUL GOTHAM

ROCHESTER, N.Y. — The scorebook may indicate a pair of routine defensive plays, but what Fairport’s TJ Lucey accomplished was anything but ordinary.

With one throw and a spinning over-the-shoulder catch two innings later, the senior right fielder preserved a season.

Connor Ewing tossed seven innings for the win, and No. 6 seed Fairport scratched across three runs in its final at bat to defeat the No. 3 seed McQuaid Jesuit Knights, 6-3 in the Section V Class AA quarter-finals.

Lucey ended McQuaid’s fifth inning with a throw from right field to get the go-ahead run at the plate.

“It was pretty much muscle memory at that point,” Lucey explained. “We practice it so much – going home and going to third. Just getting those long throws down, just making sure you’re not getting too much arc. It’s just become muscle memory by now. Keeping the throw low to get the guy.”

AJ Fina led the inning for McQuaid with an opposite field single to left. After a wild pitch, Danny Maxwell moved the runner with a sacrifice bunt. Gerry DiMarco knotted the game at three when he drove the first offering he saw through the right side of the infield. One out later, Billy Kehrig walked. It appeared Jonathan Catapano would tie the game with a base hit to right field, but Lucey had something else in mind.

“We came in knowing they were really aggressive on the base paths,” Lucey said. “When they got that liner through, I knew that they were going to send him from second going home. I just came up and threw it as fast as I could. Chris (Fairport catcher, Rizzolo)  made a good scoop at home.”

The fifth-inning play served as the opening act for the eventual main event.

With the winning run 90 feet away and the Red Raiders’ season a tattered flag flapping in a Nor’easter,  Lucey made a spinning, over-the shoulder grab in right field to send the game into extra innings.

“We were playing really shallow just because anything short we had to get,” Lucey noted. “He hit that ball, an average fly ball to right field, but I was playing so shallow that I had to turn my back and run. I was just looking up, just hoping that I stayed underneath it. It started tailing a little bit to the right, so I had to turn around and then just started falling back. I was right under it.”

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Danny Maxwell reached on a hit by pitch to start the McQuaid seventh. DiMarco moved the winning run into scoring position with a perfectly placed bunt along the third baseline. Christian Palawek entered as a pinch runner, and one out later, Kehrig put runners on the corners with a single to right field. Catapano came to the plate again looking for the go ahead run. His fly ball looked like it would find a patch of grass until Lucey’s dramatics changed the game’s course.

With the hard-throwing Ewing on the mound, Lucey provided the necessary defense in right field.

“That’s why TJ is out there,” Fairport coach Brian Reed said. “Especially with Connor pitching. You tend to get more to that side of the field, so that’s why TJ is out there. He’s got a hose for an arm and then he goes and makes a catch like that. It’s ridiculous.”

Neither team led by more than a run through the first seven innings.

McQuaid struck first. DiMarco led the second with a  walk and eventually scored when Morrie Silver‘s ground ball was mishandled.

Fairport answered in the third.

Sam Gueli started the stanza with a base on balls and scored on Lucey’s sacrifice fly.

McQuaid regained the lead in the home half of the frame with Maxwell’s RBI  base hit to right.

Chad Riorden drove in a run in the fifth and came around to score on an error as Fairport grabbed its first lead of the game at 3-2.

Mike Sabatine started Fairport’s rally in the eighth with a one-out infield single. Jake Rugaber walked, and one out later Gueli loaded the bases with another base on balls. Nick Turturro forced home the winning run with a third consecutive walk. Riorden brought home another run with a fielder’s choice, and Rizzoli made it 6-3 with an infield single.

“The energy level never dropped,” Reed said of his team. “We were playing an exceptional team. They’re very good, and their pitcher is fantastic. We knew we were going to have a battle the whole time. We came in with an energy level at maximum, and it stayed there the whole time. There was never any letdown at all.”

Riorden tossed a scoreless eighth for the save.

Ewing struck out eight and walked four.

Riorden and Rizzoli collected two hits apiece.

Kehrig finished the game 2-for-2 with two walks. Nick Tomei was 2-for-5 for McQuaid.

Fairport advances to play No. 2 seed Webster-Schroeder in the semi-finals.