Williston Park kicked off its Annual Mayor’s Trophy tournament this past Friday with a Home Run Derby. There were 14 entrants into this year’s derby and with a late comeback Williston Park’s own Justin Bestler was declared the 2012 Williston Park Home Run Derby Champ. A big round of applause went out to our other three finalists, Anthony Scibelli and Philip Arnold of Williston Park and Tyler Burke of East Williston.
Saturday saw the start of the tournament and after a few encouraging words from Mayor Paul Ehrbar, the Williston Park Red Patriots went on to win their first round game with a dramatic walk off 1-0 win over Floral Park.
The team received a great pitching performance from Justin Bestler with 6 innings of shutout ball. Down to their last out in the bottom of the 6th inning, Jonathan Salamone layed down a beautiful bunt single to get things started, Jake David then walked and with runners on first and second, Anthony Scibelli came to the plate and singled to center field driving in the winning run.
The team also received some outstanding defense and overall great play from Connor McCreery, Andrew Sarnel, William McCreery, Matthew O’Connell, Christopher Lomando, Jerry Flood, and Bryan Carlucci.
Other first round results included Manhasset over Williston Park Blue Patriots 9-1. Central Nassau over East Williston 9-6 and Merillon over Massapequa 12-2.
The Williston Park Little League was lucky enough to have future Hall of Famer and current New York Yankee Mariano Rivera sign a baseball to be raffled off during the tournament. All proceeds go towards benefiting the Williston Park Little League.
The second round begins on Wednesday August 2nd with the Williston Park Red Patriots playing Manhasset and the tournament continues on Friday with a double header beginning at 6pm with the Williston Park Blue Patriots playing Floral park followed by an 8pm start with Central Nassau taking on Merillon. Come down and join the fun at Kelleher Field located at Syracuse Street and Stratford Avenue in Williston Park!!
