It had to come to an end some time. That’s exactly what happened Monday night at Key Span Park as the two-time defending NY-Penn League Champion Baby Bombers fell at the hands of their Verrazano rivals the Cyclones 3-1 in a game which featured two lengthy delays due to patchy fog.

The Penn League’s best team during the regular season completed a sweep of the three-game series thanks to outstanding pitching from staff ace Dylan Owen. Despite a two hour delay, the Mets’ 20th round selection who set a Cyclones’ franchise mark with nine wins and a sub-2.00 ERA went the first five scoreless striking out seven Bombers en route to his first victory of the playoffs.

He outpitched rehabbing Yankee pitcher Darrell Rasner whose only tough inning was the third in which he allowed two runs courtesy of a Raul Reyes runscoring double and an RBI single off the bat of Ezequiel Carrera.

The problem was Owen and a tough Brooklyn pen had silenced the Penn League’s second best hitting team in the regular season.

After another hour delay, the Cyclones tacked on a key insurance run off Staten Island reliever Nick Chigges in the home sixth when Game One star Lucas Duda singled home Micah Schilling to give them a three-run lead.

The Bombers would get the tying run to the plate in the seventh with two out but right fielder Matt Morris struckout swinging against Brooklyn reliever Brant Rustich to end the threat.

Down to their final three outs in the ninth, they would get the first two runners on against closer Eddie Kunz when Austin Krum reached on an E4 and Chris Raber singled to put runners on the corners.

Left fielder D.J. Hollingsworth broke up the shutout with a sacrifice fly cutting it to 3-1 which gave his team two cracks with the tying run at the plate. However, Kunz buckled down getting catcher Jose Gil to pop out and Morris to bounce to second for the save which allowed the Cyclones to clinch the series and advance to the Penn-League championship round where they’ll meet Auburn, who held on to edge Oneonta in Game Three tonight 4-3.

The series gets underway with Game One at Auburn Thursday night.

Though the Staten Island Yankees fell short in their attempt to become the first three-peat Penn League winner, they still had a great season and finished with the second best record (47-28) to their archrivals who were just a little better this summer in exacting a measure of revenge for being swept out of last year’s first round by the eventual back-to-back champs.

With promising players such as Justin Snyder, Taylor Holiday, Damon Sublett, Braedyn Pruitt, Ryan Pope, Chris Farley, Dellin Betances, Jason Stephens, Chigges, Ryan Zink, Nick Peterson, Jonathan Ortiz, it should be interesting to follow their minor league careers as they try to progress in the Yankee farm system.

There were many unsung heroes on what was a balanced team which included Krum, Raber, Morris, Hollingsworth, Gil, David Williams, Jason Kiley, Craig Heyer, Kyle Hollander,  Phil Bartleski, Daniel Kapala, Adam Olbrychowski, Zach McAllister, Brian Chavez, Ryan Wehrle, Frank Lonigro, Isaiah Howes, Jacinto Gonell, Fred Jones, Jeff Livek, James LaSala,  Josue Selene, etc.
What made this year’s team so much fun to cover was how together everyone was. They were about as loose a bunch as you’ll ever meet and were very confident in their approach leading to on field success.

It’s hard to exclude anyone because this was a team in every sense of the word.

We wish everyone the very best this offseason and hope to see them continue to progress at Charleston or Tampa.

Thanks to all players and first-year skipper Mike Gillespie and assistants Jeff Ware, Ty Hawkins, Julio Mosquera for making it an enjoyable summer!