BINGHAMTON — Medina headed into its game against Chester with energy and dreams of hoisting a trophy by the end of the afternoon.
The team was ready. They had done the necessary scouting reports to prepare for the state title game and thought they were going to win.
However, Chester also had the same plan and only one team could win. Unfortunately for Medina, Chester was the one to execute its gameplan and get a 3-0 win in the state title game Saturday at Binghamton’s Bobcat Baseball Complex.
The loss ends Medina’s season with a 22-3 record.
“Most of the time this year we’ve always had kind of a bad habit of starting slow and then coming on fire in the mid to late innings and really separating from teams,” Medina head coach Chris Goyette said. “So this kind of one the first times this year where we ran into a problem like that where basically they didn;’t put the ball in play or walked the bases loaded and then walked in a run in. It really hasn’t happened to us this year.”
As the game went on, the Medina energy dropped but the battle remained. Even as the lead got out to 3-0, Medina fought as the team stranded runners on second and third to end the game.
The runner on second was junior catcher Hadrian Batista who finished the day going 1-for-3. Batista was one of three players on his team to collect a hit alongside Preston Woodworth and Cam Fike.
In the top of the first inning, Medina starter Aidan Papaj struggled with his control, giving up one run on zero hits while walking four hitters while throwing 38 pitches with only 15 of them being strikes. After the Hambletonians doubled their lead in the second, Papaj settled down.
“I think it’s just a matter of sometimes letting the moment get a little bit too big and Aidan sometimes trying to think he needs to do more than what he’s done all year,” Goyette said. “But that comes with maturity.”
Over the next three innings he only gave up one more run while striking out three hitters and walking three hitters. He was relieved by Vinny Gray who went 1 1/3 innings one-hit innings while giving up one walk.
Chester’s hurler Aidan Fransisco was moving at a quick pace and it was keeping the Medina hitters off balance. Medina did not get its first hit until there were two outs in the fourth inning when Cam Fike hit a bloop single to center. The Mustangs followed it up in the next frame with a single before getting two hits in the seventh.
“He just did a great job of staying in rhythm, definitely keeping the ball in the strike zone, and he just kept on staying ahead of us,” Goyette said. “So just like what Preston did yesterday, he just pounded the zone, throw strikes and consistently kept hitters on the defensive versus being in attack mode. … He did a great job of just throwing his fastball and his slider and his change up super effectively in his own and didn’t really put himself into bad counts.”
During Batista’s at-bat in the seventh inning, Medina head coach Chris Goyette was ejected for arguing balls and strikes. As a result of his ejection, Goyette will be forced to sit out next year’s season opener. When asked about the ejection after the game, Goyette declined to comment.
After this season, Medina is returning 10 players including Batista, Papaj and pitcher Preston Woodworth.
“I think it shows the freshman a lot,” Batista said. “… I think that our freshman, we have a lot of talent coming up, one tenth grader, a lot of talent like I said. I think this whole experience, it shows them that every inning, every pitch, every game matters.”