Final: Wantagh 4, Plainedge 1
WP: Anthony Fontana
S: Mason McLane pic.twitter.com/pyGUi3N7Of Axcess Baseball LI (@axcessbaseball) April 23, 2018
Anthony Fontana has made a habit of coming up big in his career. Whether it be at the plate in the Long Island Championship against the Paul Gibson Award winning RHP Sam Kessler or last season on the mound in an emergency start against Carl Yastrzemski Award Winning RHP Brian Morrell, the southpaw is always calm and in control on the mound.
And he always seems to win.
He performed like a seasoned veteran today, pitching out of a couple of jams to lead Wantagh to a 4-1 victory over a dangerous Plainedge team that entered with a record of 9-2-1.
“We practice every single day and we really work hard for these big games and I think we executed really well,” said the Furman-commit. “The team stepped up big today and we got a nice win over Plainedge,” he added.
He did fall behind 1-0 in the top of the first when Albany-commit Jason Bottari legged out an infield single to the first base side, stole second and third and came in on a ground to by Joe Cottone.
In the bottom of the first, Anthony D’Onofrio was thrown out at the plate on a bang-bang play on an exceptional throw by Bottari. D’Onofrio appeared to elude the tag, but the umpire called him out. They wound up tying the game in the second inning on an RBI double to right field by Jake Castellano to score Rich Kirchner.
The pace of play of the game slowed to a crawl for the most part, needing more than two-and-a-half hours to complete seven innings.
Wantagh grinded out at bats against RHP Nick Incalcaterra, who entered with an unblemished record.
Wantagh takes a 2-1 lead on a wild pitch in the third pic.twitter.com/XDxh2CsUL7
Axcess Baseball LI (@axcessbaseball) April 23, 2018
They took a 2-1 lead on a wild pitch that scored Fontana in the third inning. Incalcaterra was relieved by Frank Whitenack in the fourth inning with nobody out and two runners on, Whitnack did a terrific job of escaping without allowing any damage.
Fontana really hit his stride in the later innings, he did navigate through a jam in the fifth inning when he allowed runners to get to second-and-third with 1 out but fanned the dangerous Nick DeMicco to preserve the lead.
One thing that stood out was the composure of Fontana when runners got to scoring position. It’s almost as if he is able to get into damage control mode before anything happens and he strands the runners at an incredibly high rate.
Wantagh added another run on a wild pitch in the fifth inning and Fontana went back out for the sixth inning with 99 pitches. He struck out the first two batters–bringing his total to 10 against 0 walks–but he came out in favor of Ethan Herman. He allowed a double but escaped the jam without any damage.
Herman came back out for the seventh for the save, but ran into some trouble and allowed consecutive hits to bring the tying run to the plate. Coach Keith Sachs made the move to bring in Mason McLane, who promptly ended the game with a strikeout.
Wantagh improves to 9-1 on the season and appear to be hungry to capture a three-peat. There are plenty of legitimate contenders in Nassau County Class A this season, but until someone proves otherwise–Wantagh is the team to beat right now.
