Oceanside swept by Calhoun

Calhoun advanced to the Nassau Class AA baseball semifinals with a 9-5 home win over No. 8 Oceanside on May 20, completing a two-game sweep of the quarterfinal series.

The second-seeded Colts, who advanced to face No. 3 Carey in the semifinals, were hot from the first pitch as Dan Sullivan launched a double to center field off pitcher Erik Kondak. Robbie Rosen put Calhoun on the board with a homer to send Kondak home and take the 2-0 lead. Senior John Mekelburg, who pitched six innings for the Colts, was key in keeping the Sailors at bay — Mekelburg retired the first three Oceanside batters he faced.

"We got a good start offensively, couple of guys hit the ball really well and got on the score board and just never looked back," Calhoun assistant coach Mike Marino said. "John was able to have a good first inning, had a 1-2-3, which is always nice to start off and build a little confidence."

Despite taking the early lead, Oceanside refused to let down. With Mike Hertling on third and Nick Iadevaio on second, Michael Connell hit a single to drive in the run and put the Sailors on the board. Joseph Totino stepped up to the plate next for a single to bring Oceanside within one at 3-2.

The Sailors, who had a late surge in a 12-11 Game 1 loss, gained some confidence from nearly defeating Calhoun earlier in the week. It gave Oceanside the confidence it could keep on Calhoun's heals and fight for a win, Sailors coach Andrew Morris said.

"This is now a team that although we didn't know if we could beat them in the beginning of the year when we played them, we knew that we could," Morris said of Oceanside's mentality at the start of the game. "The kids made a great transition, we suddenly started scoring a lot of runs, and they're a good hitting team so we knew we had to stay with them."

Even with the ability to get hits off of Mekelburg, Oceanside was never able to pull ahead and take the lead – with a few errors and and RBIs from Jake Thomas, Frank Trimarco, and Alex Ras, Calhoun extended its lead to 6-2 by the top of the fifth inning. That did call for a pitching change for Oceanside, but it didn't put too much of a chink in its offensive game. The Sailors answered in the bottom of the fifth with three runs on one hit and two errors to get within 7-5.

Hertling's double that made it 7-5 was the final run Oceanside would be able to muster. Mekelburg finished out the sixth inning allowing no runs. Danny Frisch stepped up to close out the game on the mound for Oceanside — despite a slew of lefties in the bullpen, the Sailors weren't able to keep Calhoun's bats quiet.

"Our lefties we're what was keeping us in the game, once they caught up to one of them I had to put in a different one, that was our philosophy right from the beginning," Morris said.