The umpire rang up the last of the 14 strikeouts, and Derek Yormack tossed his glove in the air after throwing his big-game masterpiece. The celebration was on for the Cougars from Bellmore JFK.
“The whole team is going to go down in history now,” Yormack said. “This is what people remember.”
This baseball program hadn’t won a Nassau County championship — until Sunday. After three straight trips to the title round and the fourth overall, Bellmore JFK was finally No. 1.
The third-seeded Cougars edged the top-seeded defending champ, Garden City, 4-3 in the deciding Game 3 of the Nassau Class AA finals at Farmingdale State. They did it behind a four-run first and the righty Yormack yielding no earned runs and just two hits — none after the first.
“It means everything,” coach Mike Gattus said. “Our players, our family, our school community, our administration, our teachers, colleagues, friends, the Little League — everyone has supported us so much. So to be able to do this for them and give this back to them is a special thing.”
The Cougars (21-5) will face Hauppauge in the Long Island Class AA championship game/Southeast Regional final at 3:30 p.m. Saturday at Farmingdale State.
The Trojans (23-7) received an at-large ticket to a regional semifinal against Section IV winner Horseheads. They will play at 5 p.m. Tuesday at Maine-Endwell High School.
“We’ve got a lot of tough kids that are used to winning,” Garden City coach Dave Izzo said. “So I’m not worried about their mindset.”
How about a Bellmore JFK-Garden City rematch for a state title June 13 in Binghamton?
“It will be storybook if we wind up seeing them up there in the state championship,” Izzo said.
Dylan Babek singled in two and bases-loaded walks forced in two in the Cougars’ first-inning rally against Fionn Ryan. Caiden Lang took over with two outs and surrendered just three hits over the final 6 1/3 innings.
“We got off the bus firing,” Babek said. “We were like, we’ve got to score in the first inning … and get on top of them.”
The Trojans got one back in the home half and two in the third.
But Yormack stranded the potential tying run at third with three straight strikeouts in the fourth. That began the Vanderbilt commit’s closing run of 12 consecutive batters retired.
“He’s a once-in-a-lifetime player,” Gattus said, “and he stepped up for his team in a major way today.”
Brian Heyman covers high school, college and pro sports. He joined Newsday in 2021 and previously worked as a sportswriter for The Journal News in White Plains and The Hudson Dispatch in Union City, New Jersey. His work has appeared in The New York Times, MLB.com and Baseball Digest magazine.
Comments are closed.