COURIER L 20 IFE, SEPT. 20-26, 2019
Whirlwind
victory!
Brooklyn Cyclones clinch
fi rst title win since 2001
The Brooklyn Cyclones celebrate after winning the 2019
NYPL Championship at MCU Park. Jon Farina
BY JOE HITI
Lets go Brooklyn!
The Brooklyn Cyclones
clinched the
New York Penn League
Championship at MCU
Park on Sept. 10, vanquishing
the Lowell
Spinner’s in a closely
contested third game of
the series and providing
relief to the team’s
long suffering fans!
“It’s about time,”
said Cyclones fanatic
Eddie Mark.
The Cyclones entered
the postseason with a
league-best record of 43
wins to 32 losses, and
approached Tuesday’s
championship game
tied 1-1 in a best-of-three
series against the hated
Massachusetts club.
Jake Mangum put
the Cyclones on the
board at the bottom of
the second inning with
a single to the left, and
the Coney squad followed
up the game’s
debut point with a runscoring
ground out to
second.
The Brooklyn ballplayers
early lead was
short lived, however,
and the Spinners tied it
up at two a piece in the
top of the third inning.
Marino Campana’s
solo home run in the
top of the seventh gave
the road team a onerun
lead over the Cyclones,
but Antoine Duplantis
closed the gap
with a game tying RBI
triple, and the Cyclones
regained the lead after
Yoel Romero hit an
RBI single to left center,
clearing Duplantis’
path to home and securing
the championship
title with a nail-biting
4-3 victory.
“It was a relief watching
the last strikes be
thrown,” Mark said.
This was the team’s
fi rst title since 2001,
when the Cyclones
were given an honorary
ring in the wake of
the Sept. 11 terrorist attack,
which led offi cials
to cancel the 2001 championship
series.
MAX