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Sports

Point Borough Baseball Eliminated from Shore Conference Tournament in Stunning Fashion to Toms River North 8-7

Panthers allow six spot in the final frame, after scoring five runs of their own in the top of the inning.

All season long, the Point Borough baseball team has shown that it can hang in with the top teams in the Shore Conference.

And yet, all year, Point Borough has displayed the knack for finding new ways to lose against those same elite teams.

Once again, that bugaboo for not being able to close out an opponent was on display on Thursday afternoon as Point Borough could not hold a 7-2 seventh inning lead and was eliminated from the Shore Conference Tournament by Toms River North, 8-7, at the Toms River North Athletic Complex.

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After Point Borough received six terrific and economical innings from hurler John Dunbar, the relief duo of Dane Gahr and John Spinapont combined to walk five and hit one batter, which was a key culprit to the Mariners’ remarkable seventh inning comeback bid.

“We wanted to have John Dunbar saved up for the States on Monday and with a five run lead, I felt that I was able to take him out,” said Point Borough head coach David Drew.

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“If it was a one or a two run game going into the seventh, he would have been out there," Drew said. "We thought we would be able to get through that inning with other guys, but you just can’t simply walk that many guys and expect to get away with it.”

Toms River sent ten men to the plate and wound up winning the game on a Scott Buxbaum double down the left field line, which sent the Mariners into the Round of 16 in the Shore Conference Tournament, setting up a matchup against Brick High School.

“We’ve been down in multiple games this year, and we knew that if we got some base runners on that we would have a chance to come back,” said Buxbaum. “We’ve done it before and we knew we could do it again.”

It appeared Toms River was all but finished in the Shore Conference Tournament when Point Borough rallied for a five run seventh inning, breaking a 2-2 tie.

The five-run frame was capped by what at the time was the go-ahead RBI double by senior Jimmy DiOrio.

Following the DiOrio double, Dane Gahr, Ryan Prout and Rob Pawlak all contributed run scoring hits, and put Point Borough in a position where they were only three outs away from the round of 16 in the SCT.     

“We just don’t know how to close these games out,” said Drew. “Our team simply does not know how to close the door, and we cannot take positives from just coming close against these top teams.

"Coming close is not good enough at this point in the season," Drew said. "You want to win this game, and we should have won this game.

“I don’t know what exactly happened to our guys that last inning,” said Drew. “I wish they got a better outcome. They deserved to win that game.” 

After five consecutive free passes, two of which forced home two Mariners runs, the Toms River offensive attack was able to drive in a run with a hit, courtesy of a Mike Daniels single to center field off Spinapont, which cut the Point Borough lead to two runs.

Following the single, Toms River was able to cut the deficit to one run after Spinapont walked Brett Fontanell, forcing home yet another run.

With one out, the Mariners were able to tie the game on an infield single by Max Makoch, which preceded Buxbaum’s game winner.

“It’s the first time, I ever had a walk-off hit before,” said Buxbaum. “I’m just happy that I was able to help my team win.”

With the defeat, the Panthers are eyeing the State Tournament that is slated to begin on Monday. Point Borough, an 11th seed, will take on the sixth seed Woodstown.

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