Harrigan, Barbulean come up clutch as Mendon reaches state Final Four

By KEVIN OKLOBZIJA

Sam Harrigan, the freshman second baseman for Pittsford Mendon’s on-the-upswing baseball program, learned a valuable lesson on Friday evening about being the hero.

Avoid at all costs the celebratory meet-and-greet on the infield.

Harrigan boomed a two-out double over the head of right fielder Sebastian Gonzalez in the bottom of the ninth inning, driving home Colden Forney from second base to give the Vikings a 1-0 walk-off victory over Amherst and a trip to Binghamton for the state Final Four.

The clutch double, just the fourth hit off Amherst left-hander Evan Beiter, brought to an end a classic Class A Far West Regional pitcher’s duel at Innovative Field and kept alive Mendon’s one-for-the-decades season.

Off the bat, Harrigan said he was quite sure the ball was dropping. Then he saw Gonzalez closing in and started to worry. When it finally hit the ground, “I was just ecstatic. But then in the dogpile I couldn’t breathe and was trying to get everybody off of me,” he said with a smile.

Such is life for the walk-off hero. A minor inconvenience, really, for delivering the hit that is sending the Vikings to just the second state Final Four in program history, and the first since 2001.

VIEW MORE PHOTOS FROM STEVEN TWARDZIK.

“This squad is the definition of ‘trust the process,’ ” senior pitcher Cam Barbulean said after striking out 16 in the complete-game, two-hit shutout.

Indeed, when the Class of 2025 members of this Mendon team were sophomores, they went 6-14. As juniors, they were better, but not good (9-11).

“This year we knew this was the year for us,” Barbulean said.

In winning, the Vikings improved to 18-6 and ran their winning streak to seven. Over that span, they have outscored opponents 67-5.

But on Friday, hits – and baserunners, for that matter – were a rarity. The Innovative Field scoreboard above the left field wall showed nothing but zeroes for 8 ½ innings.

“That’s a great team, they matched up pitch for pitch, inning for inning,” Mendon coach Shawn Caveny said of the Tigers (who finished 14-9).

Barbulean was dealing, often overpowering hitters with his fastball, which was even more devastating thanks to his effective curve ball. The Tigers didn’t have a baserunner until the fourth, a hit until the fifth and only once did they have two baserunners in the same inning (the sixth).

They never could find a way to score, however. The two-on, two-out rally in the sixth ended on a harmless ground out. In the top of the ninth, after leadoff batter RJ Rybicki was hit by a pitch and was bunted to second, Barbulean struck out No. 3 hitter Grady Brown – the batter he admitted that he feared most – and retired cleanup batter Patrick Kantz on a comebacker.

It’s the first time the Clarkson-bound left-hander had gone nine innings and he did so on 118 pitches, seven shy of the high school limit.

“Cam put his big-boy pants on today,” Mendon coach Shaun Caveny said. “That’s a herculean effort.

“He kept us in the game until our offense was able to scratch out a run.”

That run came when Forney led off with a single, moved to second on Barbulean’s sacrifice bunt and, after a pop out, scored on Harrigan’s double.

“The way Sam has been swinging the bat, I was confident,” Caveny said. “Anytime we needed something big this year, he seemed to get the job done.”

Long before the ball dropped, Forney was already nearing the plate, and when he touched home the celebration began, with the Vikings engulfing Harrigan near second base.

“We’re together every day and this means so much,” Harrigan said.

Next up for the Vikings: a semifinal date on Friday, June 13, with either Rye (Section I) or La Salle Institute (Section II). Those teams play their regional game at 3 p.m. Saturday, with that winner taking on Mendon at Mirabito Field in Binghamton. The championship game is at 1 p.m. on Saturday, June 14.

“We’re writing history here,” Caveny said.

He’s hoping there’s at least one more chapter to write in Binghamton.