Eight years ago, Ed Dopp accepted the first Section II Class AA baseball championship plaque for Shaker.
Thursday night, Dopp handed the newest Sectional championship plaque to former player Steve Frank after the 1987 Shaker graduate guided the Blue Bison to their second Class AA title.
Jeff Hoffman pitched a complete-game shutout, and Bob Derico drove in three runs to lead Shaker to a 6-0 victory over crosstown rival Colonie in the Class AA final at Joe Bruno Stadium in Troy.
It doesn’t get any better than that, said Frank, who was the junior varsity team coach during Shaker’s 2003 Sectional championship season. `These guys have put in a lot of time and hard work to get to this point.`
The fourth-seeded Blue Bison (17-6) staked Hoffman to a 3-0 lead in the first inning, and Hoffman did the rest as he limited No. 2 Colonie (18-3) to three hits and struck out nine batters.
`The emotions of playing in an atmosphere like this with a crowd of this size [more than 2,500] are kind of overwhelming at first,` said Hoffman. `But when they got me those three runs, that helped me to breathe a bit.`
`He’s just overpowering,` Colonie coach Kevin Halburian said of Hoffman, who will be pitching for East Carolina next spring. `He throws a very heavy, hard ball that’s difficult to hit.`
Hoffman helped his own cause in the first inning with a single that drove in right fielder Joey Bilynsky with the game’s first run. Two batters later, Derico drove a Matt Snyder pitch to center field that brought Hoffman and first baseman Drew Lasky home to make the score 3-0.
Shaker got to Snyder again in the top of the third inning. Lasky drew a lead-off walk and reached second on a passed ball. Third baseman Derek Gardella then lined a single to drive in Lasky for a 4-0 lead.
A one-out double by catcher Bryan Egan chased Snyder. Halburian brought in Chris Kalica, who pitched six innings in last Saturday’s 6-5 semifinal victory over Shenendehowa, and after issuing an intentional walk to Derico, Kalica struck out the next two Blue Bison batters to get out of the third inning with no further damage.
Kalica continued to keep Shaker off the scoreboard over the next three innings, but Colonie never got any runs off Hoffman. The Garnet Raiders came close in the bottom of the fifth inning when they loaded the bases with two outs, but Hoffman struck out Kalica on three pitches to end the threat.
`We had the right people [at the plate], and 90 percent of the time we get those runners in,` said Halburian. `But we didn’t do that tonight.`
Shaker added two insurance runs in the top of the seventh inning on an RBI single by Derico and a sacrifice fly by left fielder Eric Egan. Then, Hoffman finished the job by getting three ground outs in the bottom of the seventh.
`I knew Derek [Gardella] was warming up in the bullpen [in the top of the seventh], and I told [pitching coach] Wayne Jones that there was no way I was coming out,` said Hoffman.
Shaker advances to Monday’s regional game against Section III champion Liverpool in Rome, while Colonie faces the difficult prospect of replacing 13 seniors next year including Kalica, Snyder and catcher Brian O’Keefe.
`Losing to anybody in a final stinks,` said Halburian. `These guys worked very hard all year to get to this point, and it hurts when you lose.“