Saturday, May 13, 2017: Mattituck outlasts Southampton in 19 innings

   Leading off today: Mattituck went the extra mile -- and then some -- to earn a share of the Suffolk County Division 8 baseball title, outlasting Southampton 5-4 on Friday in the completion of a suspended game that spanned 19 innings.

   The game, which was suspended Wednesday after each side scored a run in the 13th inning, may have set a NYSPHSAA record for extra innings.

   Tuckers sophomore Bryce Grathwohl pitched all six innings (three hits allowed, eight strikeouts and no walks) after play resumed Friday and belted his first career home run, a deep blow to left field, in the 19th inning to forge a tie in the standings with Southampton with identical 15-5 league and overall records.

   "Without a doubt, we wanted to win this game more than any other game this year, and we did that," Mattituck's Ryan McCaffrey told The Suffolk Times.

   Said Southampton coach Scott Johnson: "It was incredible baseball. It wasn't just one team playing well. Both teams played terrific baseball. The pitchers were outstanding, and it boils down to one pitch."

   The game was suspended by darkness Wednesday with the score 4-4. On Thursday, Southampton beat Babylon 4-1 to assure itself of at least a tie for league honors.

   The contest lasted 4 hours, 40 minutes. Mattituck out-hit Southampton 17-10 and the teams combined for 567 pitches by seven hurlers.

   More on the marathon: Record-keeping is sorely lacking in most New York high school sports, so we can only guess that the Mattituck-Southampton game broke the New York State Public High School Athletic Association record for extra innings.

   All that came to mind for me was Pittsford Sutherland and Canandaigua sparring for 16 innings last month.

In 2012, Center State Conference (Sect III) rivals went 17 innings over 2 days, Little Falls over Sauquoit Valley 7-5 (that's all I've got!) https://t.co/oU6dXf21KO

— Ron Moshier (@OD_Moshier) May 13, 2017

   I suspect that the overall state record is a 24-inning CHSAA contest between Holy Trinity and St. Anthony's that took almost a month to complete (insert joke here).

   That game was suspended after nine innings on April 15, 1988. Holy Trinity won 6-5 when the game was completed on May 14.

   The national record might be a pair of 25-inning affairs: Kamehameha vs. McKinley in Honolulu in 1967 and California schools Hayward and San Lorenzo in 1975.

   More baseball: Senior lefty Chris Cappas allowed only four baserunners as Kellenberg shut out St. Anthony's 3-0 to earn back-to-back CHSAA regular-season championships for the first time in school history.

   Cappas, the CHSAA pitcher of the year as a junior, extended his shutout streak to 18 2/3 innings as Kellenberg improved to 14-4. He struck out four and fell one out short of a complete game due to pitch-count rules. Mike Laskowski recorded the final out.

   That's a busy week: Niagara-Wheatfield outslugged Kenmore West 12-9 in softball, completing a stretch of seven games in five days.

   Katie Kostiw drove in the go-ahead run in the top of the seventh inning, and Mackenzie Franks had the oddity of picking up the win and the save in the same game by taking a position in the field between two stints on the mound, The Buffalo News reported.

   Impressive comeback: Fulton dug itself a nine-goal hole by allowing the first four scores of the second half, then recovered to beat Auburn 19-18 in a double-overtime girls lacrosse game.

   Junior Hailey Carroll (eight goals, one assist) scored the winning goal for the visitors, who rattled off 12 of the next 13 goals after falling behind 15-6.

   Jordan Coulon (six goals) and Mckenna Chesboro (four) booked seven points apiece in the win.

   Fulton is ranked 16th in the state in Class B.

   Loucks Games: The Loucks Games, featuring more than 3,000 athletes from 255 schools, will wrap up Saturday in White Plains. Expect the usual slew of superb performances, though even the most elite of performers will be hard-pressed to match what Saratoga distance star Kelsey Chmiel did Friday.

   A day after splitting 4:42.93 in the distance medley relay to help the streaks to a U.S. season-best time, Chmiel won the 3,200 meters in 9:59.62 to fend off Jacqueline Gaughan (10:05) of Exeter (N.H), landing both in the national top five for the season.

   Chmiel's mark is No. 3 all-time in New York.

    • Brewster's Amelia Cuomo, who scurried to the meet after finishing her fourth Advanced Placement test, captured the girls 1,600 racewalk in 7:30.1.

   Following up: We mentioned earlier in the week that Indian River folded the tent in boys lacrosse by forfeit its final four games of the season. The Daily Times reported injuries were the culprit, with AD Jay Brown indicating the Warriors were down to 12 healthy players.

   The season began with 22 players on the roster.

   Extra points: Justin Culligan, an assistant last fall, was appointed head football coach at Corinth during Tuesday's school board meeting. He replaces Chris Doody, who plans to continue as an assistant after four years as the Tomahawks' head coach.

   Culligan, 42, was dismissed at Whitehall during the 2014 season as part of the fallout from a fight-marred football game vs. Rensselaer.

   "I didn't know if I wanted to be a head coach again -- I really enjoyed last year as an assistant," he told The Post-Star. "The kids were unbelievable. They got me back to that passion I had two years ago."