Not often will you find a cleaner game of baseball at the 10u level than in today’s finals of the ‘Beat the Heat’ tournament at Plainedge Park between the LI Titans-Anderson and the Smithtown Bulls. The game took a swift 1 hour, 34 minutes and the Titans held off a late Bulls rally to triumph by the score of 7-5.
Here’s how it went down.
The pitching match up of Joey Lionetti for the Titans and Ronan Keely for the Bulls was a good one but each made a mistake in the first inning. Angelo Ciminiello, younger brother of Seton Hall-commit Mike Ciminiello, crushed a one-out home run to left field in the top of the first to get the Bulls on the board.
The Titans wasted no time in responding with a leadoff HR by Joey Irrizary to tie the game up 1-1.
In the top of the second, the Bulls regained the lead when Drew Nucci, son of Smithtown West HC Al Nucci, led off with a walk. He advanced on a walk and a wild pitch to get to third and came around to score on an RBI ground out to first base off the bat of Tyler Moleti.
Each team traded zeros in the third inning, but the Bulls went back to work in the top of the first. Nucci led off with an infield single to SS and advanced on a wild pitch. Ronan Keely drove him in on an RBI ground out back to the pitcher.
Keely’s day was done, he gave way to Jack Derosa in the bottom of the fourth.
He was greeted rudely by Colin Raymond‘s leadoff home run to cut the deficit to 3-2. After a single by Nick Coupet, Sean Cima drove him in and circled the bases on an inside-the-park HR to right center field. It was an outstanding piece of hitting on a fastball up-and-away.
It was one of the many impressive facets of this game which included the infield defense by both teams, the ability to throw strikes by the pitchers and the ability of the catchers to neutralize the running game. Often times the 10u game become relay races on the bases but not with catchers like Angelo Ciminiello and Colin Raymond.
With the 4-3 lead, the Titans added a few insurance runs which came on an unearned run and an RBI ground out off the bat of Marcus Chan. Drew Nucci came on in relief and put out the fire and retired the next two batters to get the Bulls back in the dugout.
Brady Azariah came on in relief in the top of the fifth and he allowed a single to right field by Blake Stockwell but after a strikeout, he made a reactionary catch on a line drive back to the mound and turned it into an inning ending double play to get his team three outs away from the title.
The Titans added another run in the bottom of the inning on a rocket RBI single off the bat of Coupet which nearly knocked the glove off the shortstop.
Needing four runs to tie, the Bulls started off the inning exactly the way they would’ve liked – with a leadoff walk. After a strikeout, Jack Cascione singled to center and Drew Nucci ripped an RBI double to right field to make it 7-4. The following batter, Joey Vulin hit an RBI single to left to make it 7-5 and get the tying run to the plate. Azariah, now with his back against the wall, stepped up with back-to-back strikeouts to end the jam and the ballgame for the Titans who were crowned champs.
