Port Washington Little League baseball can advance to Metro Region final with win Wednesday
Port Washington's Walt Cassens connects against Bayonne Central in the Metro Region tournament on Monday in Bristol, CT. Credit: Stan Godlewski
The Port Washington 12U Little League baseball team has one more chance to keep its summer dream alive.
After suffering its first loss of the Metro Region tournament Monday, Port Washington will face Connecticut’s Darien in an elimination game at 5 p.m. Wednesday at the Little League East Region headquarters in Bristol, Connecticut.
The winner will advance to the championship game against Bayonne (New Jersey) at 7 p.m. Friday.
Port Washington fell to Bayonne, 12-2, in four innings Monday, but its players and coaches quickly turned their attention toward the next task at hand. The team entered the regional tournament after winning its first ever New York state championship on July 31 and is still two victories away from earning a berth in the Little League World Series in Williamsport, Pennsylvania.
“We’ll be ready to play again on Wednesday,” manager Dave Gabriel said. “We’ll get another good practice in, we’ll get a good round of [batting practice] in and, I know it sounds cliche, but we’ll just keep doing what we’re doing. It wasn’t our day and that happens. That’s baseball.”
Port Washington showed flashes of its usual defensive ability against Bayonne, including a 9-2-6 double play in the second inning that ended a potential scoring threat. But Bayonne’s offense proved difficult to contain, scoring four runs in the first inning and five more in the third.
Mason Rincon’s two-run home run in the first helped set the tone for Bayonne. Gabriel said the Port Washington pitching staff will need to be ready for another strong offensive opponent Wednesday.
“Kudos to [Rincon], he’s a great hitter and that’s what great hitters do,” Gabriel said. “We’ll be back on Wednesday, hopefully we win and we can face Bayonne again.”
The All-Stars’ ace, Drew Theoharis, had to rest from the mound on Monday after exceeding his pitch limit in Saturday’s win over Lincoln (Rhode Island). Now available for Wednesday, Theoharis said the team has used its practices to address areas it can improve before the game.
“We’ve been working hard on hitting different speeds that will prepare us,” Theoharis said. “We’ve also been working on different scenarios that we’ve had trouble with in other games. I’m looking forward to hopefully winning.”
Darien enters the elimination game having lost to Bayonne, 8-2, in its tournament opener before defeating Lincoln on Sunday. Port Washington has watched both of Darien’s games and knows a win won’t be easy, but it’s up for the challenge.
“We’ve seen both of [Darien’s] games so far and they seem like a very good team,” Gabriel said. “So we’ll have our work cut out for us, but hopefully we can push through and make it to a championship on Friday.”
For Port Washington Little League president Eric Trenaman, regardless of Wednesday’s outcome, the team’s run has already represented something significant for the community.
“We are very proud of the program and the history that [Port Washington Youth Athletics] has built here,” Trenaman said. “It takes more than one, two, three people to do what gets done out here. It takes a village and we want to wish all the best to our Port Washington boys.”
Tess Ferguson is a reporter on Newsday's high school sports staff. She joined the team after graduating with a journalism degree from Ithaca College in 2025.
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