Final: Longwood 5, Walt Whitman 0
WP: Dean Ennis (5.2 IP, 3 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 9 Ks)Urso: 2-R triple
Moscatiello: solo HR pic.twitter.com/UZrts3GjF5— Axcess Baseball LI (@axcessbaseball) March 27, 2024
With an established team like Longwood and an up-and-coming program like Walt Whitman, it promised to be a great League I series to kick off the 2024 season.
With the exception of two innings, Walt Whitman has been up to the task, but they have came up short both games by the score of 1-0 and 5-0. Longwood’s pitching has proven to be just too tough and their ability to put together rallies has been the difference.
Walt Whitman sent their sophomore stud, Jaden Grose to the mound against Longwood’s senior southpaw Dean Ennis.
The game was scoreless through three innings, as both pitchers traded zeros and were on top of their game.
Here’s the solo shot by Stephen Moscatiello that gave Longwood the early 1-0 lead pic.twitter.com/TKEwpwSQcy
— Axcess Baseball LI (@axcessbaseball) March 28, 2024
The turning point happened in the fourth inning when Stephen Moscatiello led off the inning with a solo shot to left field. They did not stop there, as they added on four more runs.
Brayden Plugues followed with a single, and Luciano Lorefice reached on an error. Timmy Kaleb also reached on an error and Jaden Urso came through with a big two-run triple off the fence in left field to make it 4-0. They added one more run on a sacrifice fly off the bat of Dan Moccio to extend the lead to 5-0. The inning finally came to a close when Grose got a ground out to shortstop.
Working with the lead, Ennis’ game plan did not change. He worked around a one-out single by Kevin Brown and struck out Dan Ryan and Tommy Crapanzano to strand a runner at second.
Grose went back out for the fifth inning, but hit the 85-pitch limit and was removed after he retired the first two batters. His final line was 4.2 innings, 4 H, 2 ER, 0 BB, 6 Ks. His fastball was 83-86 and topped at 88 per Pocket Radar.
He was relieved by Liam Donnelly who struck out Plugues to end the fifth inning.
Ennis retired the first two batters in the sixth before allowing a double to Paul McNally. Kyle Connolly came on in relief and struck out Kevin Brown to end the sixth inning.
Things got a bit dicey in the seventh inning for Connolly. After striking out the first two batters, he walked consecutive batters to give the Wildcats some hope as they turned over the lineup to Lucien Saint Cyr. He got jammed and hit a soft liner back to Connolly who made the play easily to seal the 5-0 win.
Through two games, Longwood has fired two shutouts and appears like the best team in League I. They will look for the sweep on Saturday as they will likely send Luciano Lorefice to the hill.
