by Lou Accumanno
Tom Ventimiglia was perfect at the mound today with 13 strikeouts helping the LI Titans get the 9-0 victory over the Seminoles and advancing to the championship this Saturday. He is your Axcess Baseball Player of the game. pic.twitter.com/6KJr3U7G9D
— Axcess Baseball LI (@axcessbaseball) August 8, 2019
Nothing was stopping LI Titans starting pitcher Tommy Ventimiglia on the mound today as he helped his team get the 9-0 victory in the semifinals over the B1000 Seminoles.
Ventimiglia didn’t have his best stuff on the mound early as his first three batters reached base. But, with bases loaded Ventimiglia–with the help of the infield–found the hot hand and got himself out of that jam.
Not only was the defense on point but so was the offense. Ryan Ferremi singled to start off the inning for the Titans and shortly after they kept the hits coming. Jordan Zucker doubled as he smacked the ball down the first base line sending Ferremi to third. With runners on second and third Cole Maucere was intentionally walked to first with all runners on base. Ty Acker stepped inside the batter’s box and clobbered a double that sent home all three runners.
“We focused on attacking the ball today. We swung at strikes and we had great contact. Overall, we just wanted to keep the momentum going through the whole game,” said Titans assistant coach Mike Demarest.
The at bat didn’t end for the Titans as JT Raab recorded a double to bring home Acker. Matt Mancuso recorded a double to send home Raab with still no one out in the inning. Dan Block clobbered a triple to send home Mancuso which put the Titans up 6-0 heading to the second inning.
In the top of the second, Ventimiglia went right back to work on the hill as he struck out the side keeping the big lead over the Seminoles.
In the bottom of the third, two more runs came in as Raab scored from Block’s double followed by a wild throw by Seminoles pitcher Matt Minio over to second base which allowed Block to steal for home and score. The Titans extended their lead 8-0 as they headed to the top of the fourth.
One more run came to score at the bottom of the fourth as Acker sent home Raab brining the lead 9-0
With a 9-0 lead going into the fifth Ventimiglia kept relying on his fastball as he stayed on the mound for the rest of the game and kept the lead for his team in shutout victory fashion.
“Tom’s a starter and that’s our guy. He hasn’t gone 80 to 90 pitches in a while, so this was a good time for him to get back at it,” said Demarest.
The Titans eliminated the Seminoles to advance to the championship this Saturday as they look to get that last win of the season and bring home the hardware. “At any level anything can happen, and we just want to win it all,” said Demarest.
