Baseball: Fernandez's walkoff hit lifts Marlboro over Beacon for Section 9 Class A title
SAUGERTIES - The wide smile that Tommy Benfer wore while ambling toward his teammates during their celebration was, in some ways, a snapshot of this Marlboro group.
Because in that instant, the physical pain and the emotional anguish of the injury he suffered an hour earlier didn’t seem to matter at all. Foremost for him was the team success and that attitude, along with an in-the-moment mindset, has permeated the team.
“We’ve been using an acronym, ‘WIN,’ which means ‘what’s important now,’” coach John Morrissey said on Saturday. “These guys have done a great job of being unselfish and focusing on what’s in front of them.”
It’s contributed to the camaraderie and at least some of their, well, wins.
That celebratory scene, which included a water cooler dump during the dogpile, followed Tyson Fernandez’s seventh-inning walkoff single that lifted the top-seeded Iron Dukes to a 7-6 win over Beacon, delivering their first Section 9 Class B championship since 2019.
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“This feels great!” Fernandez said afterward. “It’s not about me at all, but I’m so happy for our team. We’ve been talking about doing this February and we just made it happen.”
Marlboro (15-5) gets a bye to the regional final on June 1 and will face the Section 1 or Section 4 champion.
Third-seeded Beacon erased a five-run deficit and tied it in the sixth, but Marlboro answered. Owen Schlagler hit a leadoff single and advanced to second on Cooper Vogel’s one-out walk, preceding Fernandez’s liner to left-center for the winning run.
“I didn’t like the pitches early in the count and fell behind 1-and-2, but I got something I could drive,” said Fernandez, whose team also rallied late to beat Red Hook in the semifinals. “We’ve been in these situations multiple times this season and we’re not worried in the clutch.”
The Dukes did this without Benfer, their star outfielder, who was helped off the field with an apparent hamstring injury in the third inning.
“He means a lot to us; he’s our sparkplug,” Morrissey said of Benfer. “He wants to be in every situation and it’s probably killing him he couldn’t be in there. Hopefully we can nurse (the injury) and get him back, but I know he’ll be getting the guys ready and being as supportive as he can no matter what.”
Marlboro scored five in the fourth and Schlagler’s RBI single gave them a 6-1 lead. But the Bulldogs charged back, and Jackson Atwell’s two-run double tied it at 6 in the sixth inning.
Mitch Neer and Liam Correa each drove in two for the Dukes. Miles Brooks entered in relief and escaped a bases-loaded jam in the fifth inning, and Dan Conrad pitched a scoreless seventh to earn the win.
Mikey Fontaine was 2 for 4 with a stolen base, an RBI and a run for Beacon (15-7), which had also lost a one-run game to Marlboro in April. Tye Elias went 3 for 3 with a run, Atwell was 2 for 4, and Zach Schetter and Liam Murphy both went 1 for 3.
“I had an inkling from the beginning,” Morrissey said of his belief in the team capturing its first title in five years. “We had more pitching than we’d had in previous years, and we had guys on (junior varsity) we knew could play at the varsity level. That, and the mindset and confidence of this group, made me think it was possible.”
Stephen Haynes: shaynes@poughkeepsiejournal.com; 845-437-4826; Twitter: @StephenHaynes4
This article originally appeared on Poughkeepsie Journal: Baseball: Fernandez lifts Marlboro over Beacon for Section 9 title
