Jackie Flannery helps Mount Sinai rally past Miller Place in Class A softball playoffs
Mt. Sinai's Jacqueline Flannery smashes a triple to the outfield against Miller Place during the Class A quarterfinal playoff game, Thursday, May 18, 2023 at Miller Place. Credit: George A Faella
Jackie Flannery picked the perfect time to redeem herself.
With one out in the top of the seventh inning, Flannery ripped a game-tying triple to the right-centerfield fence, scoring Daniella Sofia and Josie Alfano.
The next batter, Tori Trypaluk, hit a sacrifice fly to shallow right field, just deep enough to score Flannery for the winning run in No. 5 Mount Sinai’s 6-5 win over host and No. 4 Miller Place in the second round of the Suffolk Class A double-elimination softball playoffs on Thursday.
“It was an inside pitch and it hit right above my hands, so I was a little nervous,” Trypaluk said. “But I knew Jackie was fast enough to make it home.”
The Mustangs entered the bottom of the fourth with a 2-0 lead and exited trailing by three runs. Bella Zaher tied it with a two-run double to left field. With two outs and the bases loaded, Laney Vomero hit a line drive to right that bounced off of Flannery’s glove, allowing three runs to score.
“I really wanted to make up for that, especially since my other at-bats weren’t that good,” Flannery said.
Mt. Sinai committed three errors in the nightmarish inning, but it didn’t rattle senior pitcher Amanda Audia.
“I tried not to let it linger,” Audia said. “I know that that’s not how we normally play. I knew we would come out of it, so that inning didn’t bother me that much.”
“I was frustrated, but my teammates are always there to pick me up,” Flannery added. “They kept me in the game.”
The Mustangs got a run back in the fifth when Alfano plated Sofia on a double to left-center. Sofia led off the seventh with a double to right and when she was caught in a pickle on Alfano’s grounder to third base, she made it back to second safely.
“We told ourselves to get gritty,” Audia said. “Realistically, we’re not going to put up five runs in one inning. We had to just squeeze out whatever we could.”
Audia went 2-for-4 and hit a solo home run to left-center in the third for the first run of the game.
Miller Place (18-3) will host No. 10 Shoreham-Wading River at 4 p.m. Friday in an elimination game.
Mt. Sinai (17-3) will host No. 8 Bayport-Blue Point, which upset No. 1 Sayville with a 2-0 win, at noon Saturday. When the two teams met on May 2, it was Audia’s younger sister, Alex, who hit a go-ahead home run in the top of the seventh for a 4-3 win.
