BINGHAMTON — When Grand Island starting pitcher Caden Sharkey was removed from the game in the fifth inning, the senior received love from his teammates on his way back to the dugout and then when he sat down on the bench, he was alone.
He sat by himself in the dugout staring at the floor with a somber look on his face, appearing to be on the verge of tears, knowing his final ever game as a high schooler was over. After a few minutes, his head coach, Dean Santorio, came and embraced Sharkey and talked to him.
It came in the middle of a 9-0 loss for Grand Island at the hands of Averill Park in the state semifinals Friday at Binghamton’s Bobcat Baseball Complex.
“I was just grateful. I was grateful for being a part of such a great program,” Sharkey said. “It was an honor playing for the Vikings and the group of seniors that we have this year really brought a lot to this team. We were a very senior-heavy team and seeing this being our last game on the bench, really, made me grateful for being part of this team.
On the mound, Sharkey finished throwing 4 2/3 innings, giving up six earned runs on seven hits, while walking four hitters and striking out two hitters.
The Vikings struggled offensively in the game as Jon Neville led off the game with a single before the team’s next hit came in the fifth inning, on a Dom Leo hit a single. Those two hits were the only ones that Grand Island got off of Averill Park’s Anthony Decker. Decker finished the game, throwing a complete game shutout, giving up two hits while walking three and striking out nine.
“Early on, we hit the ball on the screws about five or six times right at some people,” Santorio said. “And they found a way with some ground balls and one hard hit ball to score some runs and move some runners. Unfortunately, we didn’t make enough plays and they found a way early to find a few holes on some ground balls and they made a few really nice defensive plays.”
One of the ways in which Averill Park was able to pull away was the fact that they benefited from sloppy play from the Vikings, who committed three errors and gave up three unearned runs.
Once the Vikings’ defeat became imminent, Santorio started going down his bench with 16 players making an appearance in some capacity.
Despite the fact that this was the team’s first trip to the semifinals since 2012, after the game, Santorio wanted to look at the positives. He preferred to highlight the fact that the team was there in the first place rather than the fact that it had been 14.
“Fourteen years to get here is nothing,” Santorio said. “There’s teams that have never been here. So I don’t care about the 14 years, whether it’s 10, 15, that doesn’t even bother me. Fourteen years is no big deal. There’s programs all over the state that have never even been here.”