In the top of the third inning, Hampton Bays had runners on first and third with nobody out. With the crack of the bat, the runner on third base took off for home, assuming the line drive headed his way would go flying down the left field line. Instead, Shelter Island/Ross third baseman Anthony Crisera took two steps to his right to snare the shot. He caught the ball and stepped on third base at almost the same time for an unassisted double play. The runner on first had found himself nearly at second base by the time Crisera caught the ball. Crisera showed the baseball savvy that Indians coach Peter Miedema said he wanted to see more of by firing the ball to first. The throw was not in time but the mere potential to have seen a triple play at Andrew Fiske Field brought some of the loudest and most extensive cheers for Shelter Island baseball this season.

Crisera’s unassisted double play came on the heels of his scoring in the bottom of the second inning. He led off the inning with a single and then stole second base. With one out, Ross’s Billy Schutt came to bat.

Schutt struck out swinging on a pitch that got past the Hampton Bays catcher. Seeing the ball rolling in the grass near the backstop, Schutt took off for first base. Meanwhile, Crisera took off for third base. Though Schutt was thrown out, the first baseman failed to look Crisera back. Taking note, Crisera bolted for home and beat the throw for the Indians’ only run in a 17-1 loss last Thursday afternoon.

The Indians had their problems with an all-eighth grade Hampton Bays team that was much bigger and stronger than they were. It did not help that pitchers Jay Card and then Crisera had trouble finding the strike zone. Both walked several batters and combined for three hit by pitches. Card tried to mix in a sharp breaking ball, which when it found the strike zone, befuddled some Hampton Bays hitters. When it did not break enough, Hampton Bays gave shortstop Hunter Starzee plenty of hard line drives and ground balls on which he could test his range. He did field several, including a grounder behind second base in short center field. Schutt also showed some range snaring a soft liner behind second base to record the sixth inning’s first out.

But there were some other plays that left Coach Miedema shaking his head. When his team came in from the field, he would take a player aside to explain what he could have done to put himself in a better position to make a play.

“We have to become a little more baseball savvy,” Coach Miedema said, adding that the Indians are finding themselves out of position and rather than making it harder on the other team he feels his players are sometimes making things much easier.

On offensive matters, he tipped his cap to Hampton Bays. “It was pretty good pitching,” he said. “Not much you could do about it. We had some moments with the bats, something to build off. That was a tough pitcher to see. They were a good team. We knew that coming in.”

And now it is back to the drawing board for the Indians as they will try to make up for lost time. Between a week’s vacation in April followed by the 8th grade class trip to Florida, the team missed nearly two full weeks of practice.

As the team re-devotes itself to practice, Coach Miedema will look to improve on some fundamentals that he said were missing during last Thursday’s game and “try to fix it from there.”

But the going will not be easy as the Indians’ season continues. “We have a tough schedule and they’re pretty good but I always plan on getting better,” Coach Miedema said.