The St. James-Smithtown Little League team that has captivated the island had their season end this weekend by falling one game short of the Little League World Series.
The team had an outstanding season, and it seemed all of Suffolk County was rooting on the youngsters. St. James-Smithtown Little League has been working to get to this point for five seasons, and their community reach is what will be remembered from this magical run.
There were watch parties, full of balloons and a mascot Bull, which brought out fans of all ages to root them on and in the end when they returned home to Long Island they were greeted with a parade in their honor.
The team lost in the Metro regional final against Connecticut’s Fairfield National, playing a road game in Bristol, Connecticut. But when all is said and done the team will be remembered as St. James-Smithtown’s first New York state champion.
Fairfield National got off to a quick start and they never looked back. They had a 3 run first inning and never saw that lead go away. The Bulls cut the lead to 5-1 but that is as close as they could get as Fairfield had an explosive late inning and tacked on 7 runs to end the game with a 12-1 final.
St. James-Smithtown proved they could beat the best of the best when they faced off earlier and the Bulls came away with a 6-1 win, but Fairfield National defeated Jackson Holbrook (New Jersey) to advance to the championship game.
“They’re obviously an exceptional baseball team,” Fairfield National manager Brian Palazzolo said. “Coming out of the state of New York is really difficult to do with Massapequa, South Shore [Staten Island], White Plains was really good this year. To come out of that state, they got here for a reason. They showed it [on Monday].”