CHS graduate Rigassio helps Babe Ruth team win state title

Columbia High School recent graduate Andrew Rigassio was a key contributor in helping the Bloomfield Babe Ruth 18U baseball team capture the state championship.
Bloomfield out-pitched and out-slugged Iron City, a highly-skilled Morris/Sussex All-Star team, by the score of 13-7 last weekend to claim the state title and move on to next week’s Mid-Atlantic Regionals in Syracuse, N.Y.
In the semifinals on July 12, the Bengals had to dig deep to scrape and claw their way to a nine-inning 15-13 victory over a talented Bergen All-Star squad.
Along the way, the boys squandered numerous leads and then battled back, using a mixture of power, finesse and speed. Bloomfield jumped to an early 7-3 lead on home runs by Rigassio and Tom Sheehan, but Bergen surged ahead by scoring four runs in the third inning and adding two more in the fourth. The Bengals tied the game in the fifth when a Dan Onove double plated Hanna and Patsy Caggiano and then they bolted into the lead on Hanna’s three-run homer.
Holding onto a tenuous 12-10 lead going into the bottom of the seventh, Bergen scored two runs to tie the contest and send it into extra innings.
A Sheehan double in the top of the eighth sent Hanna across with the leading run, but Bergen wouldn’t quit. They pushed across the tying run in the bottom of the inning and then loaded the bases with no one out. After conferring with catcher Maliki Flemming, Rigassio promptly got a strike out, a pop out and ground ball which third baseman Lou Orangeo handled easily for the third out. Bloomfield went ahead to stay in the top of the ninth when Onove drilled his fifth hit of the game into center field for a double and then scored when the Bergen shortstop threw the ball away after snaring a Pat Bollotta grounder.
Bergen led off the bottom of the ninth with a double to left, but Rigassio got the next batter on strikes. The third hitter of the inning cracked a line drive to shortstop Caggiano who sprinted to the bag to double off the baserunner and bring the Bengals within one win of a state championship.
Rigassio will attend Montclair State University in the fall.