{"id":93718,"date":"2025-07-26T09:20:10","date_gmt":"2025-07-26T09:20:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/93718\/"},"modified":"2025-07-26T09:20:10","modified_gmt":"2025-07-26T09:20:10","slug":"st-james-smithtown-captures-new-york-state-little-league-title","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/93718\/","title":{"rendered":"St. James-Smithtown captures New York State Little League title"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Call it an Empire State of Mind.<\/p>\n<p>St. James-Smithtown Little League is on top of the world as the 12-year-olds brought home the New York State title and are just a few wins away from Williamsport.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt feels great \u2014 making history with everybody that I\u2019ve been teammates with for four years straight, we\u2019ve been working as hard as we can,\u201d outfielder Eric Hanson told The Post of the program\u2019s first boys New York championship.<\/p>\n<p>The group won it all with a mighty 7-2 performance over Staten Island\u2019s South Shore Little League, a team that St. James-Smithtown lost to, 8-2, in pool play.<\/p>\n<p>Down 2-0 early and struggling with off-speed pitching in Friday morning\u2019s all-or-nothing game, the squad took a beat to rethink strategy, manager Scott Santelli said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe basically said, \u2018Hey, guys, we\u2019ve got to start looking curveball, not fastball,\u2019 \u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s the opposite of what you teach.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Santelli\u2019s son, left fielder James, recalled that their team had its back to the wall in an earlier do-or-die district tournament against West Sayville, which St. James-Smithtown came back to win.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019ve rallied before,\u201d he said, \u201cso I knew that we could do it again.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Pitcher and New York State home run derby champion Jeremy Katz got his team emotionally back in it by blasting a solo home run in the second inning, cutting South Shore\u2019s lead to 2-1.<\/p>\n<p><img style=\"aspect-ratio:1.53293413;display:block\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-modal-image=\"36649700\" width=\"904\" height=\"590\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Little-League-2.jpg\" alt=\"St. James-Smithtown poses after winning the New York State Little League title on July 25, 2025, pushing the team one step closer to the Little League World Series. \" class=\"wp-image-36649700\"  \/>St. James-Smithtown poses after winning the New York State Little League title on July 25, 2025, pushing the team one step closer to the Little League World Series.   Courtesy of Brian Erni<\/p>\n<p>Then, it was all Long Island in inning four as St. James-Smithtown blew the game open with a six-run frame during which Katz blasted another two-run homer.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cJeremy comes up, hits a second home run of the game, the whole crowd\u2019s going crazy,\u201d recalled Hanson. \u201cWe were hyping everybody up in the stands. \u2026 It felt like a home game for us.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>St. James-Smithtown moves on to the Little League Metro regional tournament, where it will face the best clubs from New Jersey, Connecticut, and Rhode Island, starting with the latter on Aug. 2 at 7 p.m.<\/p>\n<p>The tournament winner advances to the big show, the Little League World Series in August.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen I was younger, I always used to watch them on ESPN \u2014 and now I\u2019m going to be on there. It\u2019s the achievement of a lifetime,\u201d Santelli said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI really think we have a chance.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Call it an Empire State of Mind. St. James-Smithtown Little League is on top of the world as&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":93719,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,61966,61967,6084,405,403,5226,5225,5228,5227,62,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-93718","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-little-league","10":"tag-little-league-world-series","11":"tag-long-island","12":"tag-new-york","13":"tag-new-york-city","14":"tag-newyork","15":"tag-newyorkcity","16":"tag-ny","17":"tag-nyc","18":"tag-sports","19":"tag-united-states","20":"tag-united-states-of-america","21":"tag-unitedstates","22":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","23":"tag-us","24":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114918799770215837","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93718","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=93718"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93718\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/93719"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=93718"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=93718"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=93718"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}