Iannucci plays through pain, but CP falls

Leanne Iannucci stood in the batter's box with the tying run on first base and two outs in the bottom of the seventh inning. Just a few hours earlier, she was being rushed to Brookhaven Hospital.

Although she struck out looking to end the game as Carle Place lost, 3-2, to Rhinebeck in the Class B regional final at Martha Avenue Field, the fact that Iannucci had a bat in her hands tells more about her than a game-winning hit ever could.

Earlier Tuesday, as Carle Place celebrated the no-hitter Ashley Cole threw in a 2-0 win over Babylon to clinch the Long Island Championship, Iannucci was having X-rays done on the middle finger of her catching hand, which she dislocated in the fourth inning after being hit with a foul tip.

The X-rays came back negative but showed a full dislocation. The finger was then numbed, popped back into place, put in a splint, and Iannucci was rushed back to the field to attempt to play in Carle Place's next game.

"When we started playing catch, I realized that I didn't really need that finger to catch," Iannucci said.

She took over for Brooke Topel behind the plate in the second inning, playing with the splint outside of the glove.

Cole, who struck out 11 and was one hit batsman away from throwing a perfect game in the Long Island championship game, allowed five hits and two earned runs in the regional final, including a solo home run and two-run home run that put Carle Place in a 3-0 hole entering the seventh.

After Kaitlyn Davis drew a walk and Cole singled, Dana McLaughlin reached on an error to score two runs and bring Iannucci to the plate for a near Hollywood ending.

"I just wanted to do whatever I could to help," Iannucci said. "I wasn't thinking about it. I was just thinking about my at-bat and getting a base hit . . . It's disappointing. We all wanted it so badly. But we got this far and it's nothing to be upset about."

In the LIC, Iannucci singled to score Tori Hytell to break a scoreless tie in the top of the fourth inning. After a leadoff triple by Amanda Machado in the fifth, Davis gave Carle Place a 2-0 lead on an RBI single, her third hit of the game. "I thought we were going to win, I thought we could have done it, so it's frustrating," Cole said. "But we were undefeated and won a Long Island championship. You can't ask for much more."