Walk off hit gives Team Citius the championship 2-1 ! pic.twitter.com/m4tfxEvrVw
— Axcess Baseball (@axcessbaseball) October 16, 2017
The 11th annual Antonia Agostinelli Memorial Tournament was a tremendous success. The two champions were Long Island Baseball and Team Citius. I bounced back-and-forth monitoring both games tonight. LIB put on a great offensive showing, defeating LI Storm by the score of 9-5, while Team Citius defeated Next Level Baseball 2-1 on a walk off hit by Adam Conte.
Here are some other of my takeaways from the weekend:
- On Friday, Next Level defeated Motus Academy 4-1 behind a stellar performance by Ryan Martin (St. Francis Prep 2019) on the mound and another great offensive game from Aidan Larkin (Chaminade 2019). They played a clean game with strong defense and pitching.
- Franklin Parra (Copiague 2018) is one of the most electric arms in the region. He pitched–no, he breezed–through three shutout innings. He allowed no hits and struck out eight. He did not throw a fastball under 91 MPH and he hit 92 MPH. His slider and split-change are both weapons at this level. He confused hitters by use a “fake shake off” to get them thinking off-speed, but then blew fastballs past them. It was eye-opening in the sense that he barely broke a sweat. It should be fun to see how many no-hitters he takes into the seventh inning this inning. “Easy cheddar” is the only way I can describe the way his arm unleashed fastballs.
- Mike Handal (Garden City 2019) smacked a two-run shot. It was a missile off the bat, he’s committed to Fairfield and he should have a huge season for the Trojans as they look to return to the county finals.
- Justin Aviles (Brentwood 2018) continues to throw lights-out baseball and fly under-the-radar. He has dominated both outings I’ve watched him and it’s shocking to see that he is still uncommitted.
- Vincent McDermott (Kellenberg 2019) has great arm action and he really impressed me. He’s a 6’2″ southpaw that is slender and could add plenty of more velocity as he fills out. He pitched two innings and got plenty of swings-and-misses. He had Tommy John last year but just completed a fully healthy season and looks like he could be a real weapon for the Firebirds in 2018.
- Roman Dorosh (Sachem East 2019) threw six dominant innings in the championship. He was 86-88 MPH but he is a competitive force on the mound. He throws from a low 3/4 delivery that generates plenty of running action on his two-seamer and he also get two-plane tilt on his slider that he commanded well. He’s tough and he throws strikes. He should be committed to a Div-I school in the near future.
- Nick Demicco (Plainedge 2018) is a big powerful right-handed hitter and he put that power on display by launching a long HR in the championship game. Power is at a premium in the northeast and he possesses it in droves.
