Final: Rocky Point 4, Hills West 2
WP: Dominick Carbone
S: Cody MillerCarbone: 3-for-4, 2 RBI
Rocky Point improves to 12-1 pic.twitter.com/dwyolLkHjx
— Axcess Baseball LI (@axcessbaseball) June 2, 2021
Back in 2018, Rocky Point captured their first Class A County Championship in program history. A large part of that team was LHP/OF Joey Grillo who was among the top players on Long Island that season both at the plate and on the mound.
Three years later, and it’s another southpaw pitcher and lefty bat that is performing exceptionally well for the Eagles except he’s just a sophomore – which makes it even more impressive. He’s batting .510 for the season – fired a no-hitter against East Hampton last week and followed that up with a great outing today against Hills West. Carbone struck out 9 over six innings, allowing two runs on five hits and three walks in a 4-2 Rocky Point win. He helped himself with three hits today including an RBI double in the first and RBI single in the fifth which gave himself a 2-1 lead.
His stats for the season are otherworldly – .528 OBP, 17 RBI, 7 doubles, 1 triple, 1 HR – and he’s just a sophomore. Coach Anthony Anzalone has been pleased with his progress.
“Carbone is as advertised,” said Anzalone. “He’s a kid that loves to compete and loves the big moment. We knew how talented he was coming up over the years, but he’s matured so much and we are really seeing a complete player in front of us. Thank God we have him for two more years,” he added. Rocky Point as a team has been firing on all cylinders – they improved to 12-1 on the season.
In the top of the first, Cody Miller got things going – although it frightened everyone in attendance. He hit a missile towards the third baseman that struck him somewhere near the chest or shoulder and knocked him straight back to the dirt where he lied for a few minutes. Fortunately, he was able to stay in for the remainder of the game and appeared okay. Miller wound up advancing to second on a wild pitch and scoring of Carbone’s RBI double to right center field. Hills West RHP Josh Waldman escaped any further damage working around a walk issued to Max Marte.
Carbone went out in the bottom of the first and was throwing hard – sitting 83-84 MPH with a sharp 70 MPH curve. He issued a one-out walk to Queens-commit Mike Freda but struck out the next batter and ended the inning on a ground out.
In the bottom of the second inning, though, Hills West would get on the board on a bases loaded HBP of leadoff batter Ryan Muskopf which scored Mike Steinberg, who led off with an infield single to second. The thick grass actually helped a couple hits on the day as infielders were duped by how slowly the ball moved through it.
Pitchers traded zeros in the third and fourth innings and it appeared that we may have a pitcher’s duel into the later innings, but once Rocky Point’s lineup flipped over in the fifth inning that was not the case.
Cody Miller ripped another single to leadoff the inning and stole second to get himself into scoring position. He scored on a single to center by Carbone which gave the Eagles the 2-1 lead. That would extend to 3-1 a batter later on a single by Stony Brook-commit Sean Hamilton. Later in the inning, A.J. Walker ripped an RBI single to left to open up a 4-1 lead.
Sac fly by Josh Waldman and Hills West cuts the deficit to 4-2 in the fifth inning pic.twitter.com/UjQ7HDGfRP
— Axcess Baseball LI (@axcessbaseball) June 2, 2021
In the home half of the fifth, Hills West showed some life as the first three batters of the inning hit singles – Ryan Muskopf, Mike Freda and Jordan Goldstein to load the bases. Carbone struck Justin LeGuernic on a nasty curveball for the first out before allowing a sac fly to center by Josh Waldman which cut the lead to 4-2. He was able to induce a fly out to Walker in center to end the jam and strand two runners.
That was as close as Hills West would get, as Carbone fired a 1-2-3 inning in the sixth inning and Cody Miller came on for the save in the seventh and set the side down in order to close it out.
Coach Anzalone said, “We knew last year when these guys came in prior to Covid that we were talented and going to compete. Maybe it was going to be a learning year, but we knew the pieces were there. Fast forward to this year, we are seeing all that talent flourish like we thought it was going to on paper. These guys have bought into our program since they were campers at a young age and their success is a testament to that.”
They will look to lock down the No. 1 seed in Conference IV on Saturday against Kings Park.
