Center Moriches wins county title behind Foster, Roberts pitching

Alex Foster and Richie Roberts carried Center Moriches to a county championship with the kind of pitching that turns a spring game into a schoolwide memory. Foster worked five innings and allowed only two hits, then Roberts finished with two scoreless innings for the save as the Red Devils closed out the county title.

For a small Suffolk County program, that kind of win carries weight beyond one game. Center Moriches did not need a barrage of runs or a long postseason script to define its season. It won the county title on command from the mound, with Foster setting the tone and Roberts protecting it when the pressure tightened.

The numbers tell the story of how the championship was decided. Foster kept the opposing lineup quiet across five innings, limiting traffic and forcing a low-scoring, high-pressure pace. Roberts then took over and held the final two innings without allowing a run, the kind of late-game finish that usually separates a contender from a champion.

That made the Red Devils’ run feel especially meaningful for the community behind the team. In Suffolk, county titles become part of a district’s identity, and for Center Moriches that mattered as much as the trophy itself. The win gave the school a countywide marker in a landscape crowded with established baseball programs and bigger-name sports moments.

It also put Foster and Roberts at the center of the program’s season. One handled the middle innings, the other handled the close, and together they delivered the most important result available to a high school team in May: a county championship. For Center Moriches, that is the sort of performance that gets remembered long after the final out.