Cornwall slugger Greg Shaw’s long home run over the Cantine Field left-field fence in the top of the ninth lifted the Dragons to a thrilling 4-3 victory over Wallkill in Sunday’s Section 9 Class A championship contest.

No. 2 seed Cornwall (19-1) ended the top-seeded Panthers’ season in heartbreaking fashion in extra innings.

Wallkill coach T.D. Mills felt the Panthers could have gotten the best of Cornwall before the game came down to Shaw’s homer off Wallkill reliever Jacob Quiles.
“I thought we could have put them away early,” Mills said. “We left a lot of guys on. Throughout the game we had a lot of guys in scoring position and we just couldn’t get that big hit.”

An example of that came in the bottom of the seventh inning when Wallkill had a chance to win the well-played contest before it went into extra innings.

Facing a 3-2 deficit, the Panthers rallied to tie it on Bryce DeGroat’s RBI single off Shaw, who came on in relief. DeGroat’s single moved Quiles, who had singled, into scoring position. But Shaw got out of the jam by whiffing DeGroat’s brother Kyle and by coaxing James Lee into a weak groundout.

The Panthers had another opportunity to win it in the eighth inning as Jack Rauschenbach led off with a bloop single and moved to second on Chase Hermance’s sacrifice bunt.

But Rauschenbach was stranded at second as Shaw retired Brandon Vesely on a fly out to left and then struck out Spencer Freer to end the inning.

Shaw then put a charge into one to lead off the ninth for the 4-3 lead. He closed out the victory in style on the mound striking out two Panthers and getting Bryce DeGroat to line out to left field to set off a wild Cornwall celebration at the pitcher’s mound.

It was a sudden end to a great season for Wallkill and its coach T.D. Mills. The Panthers finished with a 16-5 record and won the first Mid-Hudson Athletic League championship in school history.

Though Mills was happy that his club captured the historic MHAL baseball championship, he said his players gladly would have traded it for a win over Cornwall that would have kept their season alive.

“The MHAL (title) is nice, but this is the one the kids wanted,” he said. “This is the one that hurts more. If we had lost the MHAL, you wouldn’t have seen any tears. You’re seeing tears today.”

Mills will lose four key seniors to graduation – Lee, Bryce DeGroat, Quiles and Rauschenbach.

“We’ve got some big shoes to fill,” Mills said. “Next year, we’re going to reload. We have a solid modified program and a solid jayvee program. With the guys coming up from the jayvees and the guys returning, I think we’ll be in the same position as this year.”

The Panthers broke on top 1-0 their first time up. Bryce DeGroat drew a leadoff walk and his brother Kyle singled to center field. Bryce stole third and then scored when Lee hit into a double play.

After Cornwall scored two runs to take a 2-1 lead in the top of the third, Wallkill tied it at 2-2 without a hit in the bottom of the third. Kyle DeGroat walked and advanced to second on a wild pitch by Cornwall starter Logan Marquez. He eventually came around to score on two balks by Marquez.

Hermance pitched seven solid innings for the Panthers, giving up seven hits and three runs. He struck out seven and walked two.
Cornwall will play the Section 1 champion at 4 p.m. Thursday at Cantine Field in the next round of the state playoffs.