Bayshore Tops Connetquot in Season Opener

by Chris Amato

High school baseball season on Long Island has officially kicked off and teams in the area are all looking for ways to jump start their season with early victories. Bay Shore seemed to have the right idea with a 6 – 3 win over the defending Long Island Champions, Connetquot.

The game started off with junior pitcher, Chris Ryan, taking the mound for Connetquot. Ryan seemed to have trouble finding the strike zone in the first inning having surrendered 2 runs early on. The runs were scored off of two hit batters, a walk and a basehit by first basemen, Chris LaRose.

As for Bay Shore, junior pitcher, Damien Fanduiz was given the start and provided exactly what his team would need in order to win. Fanduiz allowed a run in the first inning which was scored on a sacrifice fly by Connetquot left fielder, Patrick Galvin, cutting the Bay Shore lead down to only one.

Photo Credit: Chris Amato

The score would remain the same until the top of the 5th inning when Bay Shore’s offense would come alive to place four more runs onto their lead. The runs would be produced by RBI base hits from Mike Lovorio, Joe Rilley and even Fanduiz who helped out his own cause by smacking a 2 RBI double into the left field corner.

The 5th would be the last inning for Connetquot’s starter, Chris Ryan who finished with 3 strikeouts and allowing 6 earned runs on 8 hits. He would be relieved by sophomore, Eric Leo, who went on to keep Bayshore scoreless for the last two innings.

Fanduiz, who had kept the Connetquot bats quiet the previous three innings would have a small hiccup in the bottom of the 5th. Fanduiz would hand out 4 walks in the inning that would eventually produce two runs for the T-Birds. One of the runs would be scored by senior center fielder and University of Albany commit, Marc Wagenstien, the other was driven in on a sacrifice fly to center field by the third basemen, Anthony Del Negro.

That would be all for what was an overall good performance by Fanduiz. He would leave the game with a total of 3 earned runs on 5 hits and 4 strikeouts in 5 innings pitched. Brian Weissert would come in to pitch a scoreless 6th inning, then hand the game over to Hermes Abreu who would shut the door on Connetquot sealing Bay Shore’s first win of the year.

Fanduiz would prove to be a huge factor in the outcome of the game, supplying a excellent pitching performance to a power hitting team such as Connetquot. “I knew they were a powerhouse team, and I thought I had to go out there with one of my best performances. I knew I had a great team behind me, so I was just trying to throw strikes and let my fielders perform behind me” Fanduiz said after the game when asked if he had a game plan set in place in order to suppress some of Connetquot’s big bats.

Bay Shore is back at home on Thursday to take on Connetquot again in the second game of the series.