Rye played near-perfect baseball over the final month of the regular season, winning 12 straight games to claim a third-straight league title and enter the playoffs with the No. 2 seed.
Anytime a team puts together an extended win streak, concerns start to creep in that the team is “due” for a bad break or two, resulting in a loss at the worst possible time. But the Garnets have outscored opponents 98-10 since their last loss, showing their success is no fluke.
“In baseball, win streaks are good. Sometimes, you might want to get a couple losses out of the way,” Rye coach Mike Bruno said with a laugh. “But they just kept playing well, so you can’t fault them for that. The streak is great, and the boys have been playing great.”
Rye (16-3) opens the Section 1 Class A tournament Monday at home against the winner of Sleepy Hollow (12-7) and Hendrick Hudson (5-15). With a win, the Garnets host the section quarterfinals on Wednesday. On May 24, remaining teams advance to play in a double-elimination format.
“Once you get to double elimination, you have to feel good because then you have to lose twice to get knocked out,” said Bruno, whose team hasn’t lost back-to-back games, or to the same opponent twice, all season.
After a season-opening loss to Eastchester, Rye’s only other losses were to Mamaroneck and Ketcham, two of the top three seeds in the Class AAA bracket. The Garnets returned from their annual Florida spring training trip with a 4-3 record and haven’t lost since.
“We started off the season playing big schools like Mamaroneck and Ketcham,” Bruno said. “When we came back from Florida, we’d only played three of our 12 league games. Winning the league’s always important. That helps us get where we want to be, which we did, getting the two seed.”
The league title is Rye’s fourth in the past five years and ninth since 2014, when the Garnets won the Section 1 tournament and reached the New York state tournament finals.
During the 12-game stretch when Rye secured the league crown, the team used seven different pitchers and recorded six shutouts, including a 13-0 win against Valhalla in Tuesday’s regular-season finale.
A trio of senior starters led the way during the Garnets’ streak. Jack Sheridan pitched 28 innings, allowing just one run; Clayton McCarthy pitched 16.1 innings with three earned runs; and Peter Davies pitched 13 innings with three earned runs.
“It’s a steady group of pitchers,” Bruno said. “They’ve just been throwing strikes and they’ve gotten some great defense in the field behind them. That’s important, and getting ahead in the count so we’re not walking many batters.”
