Nick Bottari
LI Road Warriors Take Home HCBL Championship In Inaugural Season
The Neal Heaton-led LI Road Warriors entered tonight’s Hamptons League championship game needing one win to take home the title against the Westhampton Aviators. The Road Warriors took care of business wrapping up the title with a 5-3 victory. LI jumped out to a lead again early, this time in the third inning. Yesterday’s hero would deliver once again for the Road Warriors. Jordan Folgers would come up with one out in the third, after Garrett Heaton and Sean Rausch would get a base hit and a double back-to-back. Folgers found another fastball right in his wheelhouse and knocked a towering shot to left center giving his team a 3-0 lead with one out. “I keep telling people, we have great ball players on Long Island,” said Head Coach Heaton. “We have five D-1 guys, they have, I think, f...
LI Road Warriors Overcome Six-Run Deficit To Take Game One of the HCBL Championship Series, 11-8
Folgers gets it done for LI!! A grand slam in the ninth!!! Road Warriors lead, 11-8, with 2 outs now. pic.twitter.com/WMYvoEH1fT — aXcess Baseball (@axcessbaseball) July 31, 2017 The Road Warriors showed up to Aviator Field hungry for a win. The game was started with a first pitch lead off homer for Nick Grande (Smithtown West ’16, Stony Brook). The middle infielder would have himself a monster day at the plate leaving the park twice with two dingers. He finished his day 3-for-5 with two HR and four RBI; his third hit of the day started the Road Warriors ninth inning rally. “ I think our lineup had a great day overall top to bottom,” said Stony Brook sophomore Grande. “The goal was to come out here and set the tone, we fell behind but showed a lot of resiliency wh...
Eric Callahan Lifts the Aviators Over the Road Warriors in Extras
Jonah Karp interviewing the two heroes from West Hampton’s 10-8 victory over the Road Warriors pic.twitter.com/Z2kFMloYPH — aXcess Baseball (@axcessbaseball) July 19, 2017 Fireworks were still going off two weeks after Independence Day. Didn’t hear them? Well then you weren’t in Westhampton Beach Tuesday afternoon. Eight balls were hit over the fence at Aviator Field, six of them by way of Aviators. Those six home runs set a new single-game record for the Westhampton Aviators, breaking the five home runs they hit on June 30 against the North Fork Ospreys last season. But the discrepancy in home runs does not tell the story of the game. As a matter of fact, the Long Island Road Warriors were an out away from winning the game. Let me take you to that moment… It’...
Westhampton Aviators Sweep Double-Header against North Fork Ospreys
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WbifqwX4G7M Westhampton Beach hosted two baseball games on Sunday afternoon, and the Aviators were ready to return home. The top team in the HCBL hosted North Fork in a back-to-back game double-header for the sixth and seventh meetings this season. The Aviators were coming off an 11-1 victory in Shelter Island in a game that ended after eight innings due to the mercy rule. Meanwhile, the Ospreys had not played since Wednesday, a game they lost in Westhampton 9-7, due to the torrential downpour that swept through Long Island. In a match up that was billed a hot vs. cold narrative, the hot team proved to dominate. The Aviators took game one 5-3, but it was the Ospreys that got off to a fast start. After Braeden Holub retired the first two batters of the game, ...
Westhampton’s Hot Bats, Led by Nick Bottari, Take Down Sag Harbor in Extras, 7-5.
Junior first baseman Nick Bottari found his rhythm coming off a foot injury and had a monster day at the plate. In a game that went 10 innings, the Southeastern University slugger stepped up in the top half knocking in two runs on an opposite field pop fly that just stayed fair off a tough pitcher in John Polichetti. The back-and-forth battle was anchored by Bottari’s performance but majority of the Aviators lineup contributed, as they were retired in order only once, in the seventh inning. The Westhampton leadoff hitter, Eric Callahan, also had a great day at the plate finishing 3-for-5 with a walk, two stolen bases and three runs. “I just had to simplify my swing a little bit I think I was trying to do too much,” said Bottari. “I got back to the basics and just let my teammates get on ba...
Westhampton Aviators Come From Behind to Defeat Shelter Island Bucks, 15-5, in HCBL.
The Aviators trailed the Bucks, 5-3, going in to the home half of the sixth. A clutch three-run rally put the Aviators ahead, 6-5, going in to the seventh inning; from that point on it was their game. The rally was started when Westhampton catcher, Chris Dutra, struck out on a pitch in the dirt but managed to advance to first on a bad throw from the Bucks catcher. AJ Montoya of Toledo responded with a single, and then with one out third baseman, Chaney Dodge (Northwestern State) roped a double down the third base line to clear the bases. “I was really just trying to see the ball deep, work into counts; we knew we couldn’t all with one swing.” said Dutra. The double came after Dodge was hit by an inside pitch but was told by the umpire to stay at the plate because he didn’t avoid the pitch....
Westhampton Aviators Hold on to Win, 5-4, Over Riverhead Tomcats After a 5-Run Fourth
The Westhampton Aviators call Westhampton Beach’s varsity field home for the summer. The Aviators have six Long Islanders on their roster, three of which are pitchers, but only one was in the starting lineup today. Central Florida corner infielder Tyler Osik got the start at first for the Aviators. The junior is batting .324 so far this season with five doubles, seven RBI, a home run and 11 walks. The Aviator bats came together to put up five runs on three hits, a couple errors and two walks in the fourth inning. The inning was started by a lead off triple from the bat of UMass-Lowell sophomore, Cam Climo. He would come around to score and put the Aviators on the board early with no one out after Riverhead took the lead in the top half of the inning. “We weren’t producing early on, we norm...
Nine-Run Sixth Powers St. John’s to 21st Win
When you’re hot, you’re hot. The St. John’s Red Storm overpowered the Hofstra Pride, coming away with a 14-3 win for their ninth consecutive victory. “It feels good when you win, it’s nice to see our guys start swinging the bat in the middle of the game.” Head Coach Ed Blankmeyer said after the win. “Another game, another step.” The Red Storm took the lead early on a single from Jesse Berardi scoring Michael Donadio. Later in the game the Johnnies tacked on another run on a single from Anthony Brocato, scoring Troy Dixon from second. The Pride scored their only three runs in the top of the fifth inning. They scored on an error, wild pitch and an RBI single by Nick Bottari to score Steven Foster. The Red Storm came up big in the 6th inning. They ripped nine hits and scored nine ...
Hofstra Dominates in Season’s First Win
The Pride began their weekend at the Mardi Gras Invitational with a 10-3 win against Nicholls State. Hofstra tallied 18 hits to Nicholls’ three. Thanks in part to a masterful performance from starting pitcher John Rooney, he threw five no-hit innings in which he struck out six. When he left he had put his team in great position to win–as Hofstra was up 7-0. Hofstra wasted no time, first baseman Nick Bottari got them on the board with a two-run double in the game’s third at bat. They continued to pad their lead until the seventh inning, when Hofstra delivered a knock-out blow in the form of a three-run home run from shortstop Mikey Riesner. Nicholls came back to score three unearned runs in the eighth, but by that point it was all but over. Riesner led the team in RBIs wit...
Players Poised For a Bounceback Year
The beauty of college athletics is that you get four years to prove yourself. Sometimes it’s a blessing, sometimes it’s a curse and that’s entirely up to the athlete based on his worth ethic. There were a number of players who didn’t perform the way they were hoping to last year–but have committed themselves to proving that was an anomaly. In this article last year, we correctly identified T.J. Santiago, Ron Bauer and Matt Seelinger as player’s that could enjoy bounceback seasons. Here are the player’s poised for a bounce back season: Nick Bottari, Hofstra This is the first season he enters fully healthy since he was in eighth grade, when he drove in 40 runs on varsity at Shoreham-Wading River. He has suffered a myriad of injuries and has gone thro...
Rookie That Will Have the Biggest Impact in 2016
There was a time when seniority was existent in baseball. You had to wait your chance even if you possessed superior skills to the older player. Some coaches really believed the freshman needed to watch and learn. Those coaches needed to go. Fortunately, the majority of coaches subscribe to the theory that the best players must be on the field. In 2016, there will be a tremendous amount of freshmen that will pay pivotal roles for their teams. Here is a countdown of the top 10 that could determine how far their teams go… 10. Aaron Glickstein, Stony Brook: [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SCVR4hdv_MA] He would be higher on this list but he is coming off Tommy John surgery and it is not clear how the coaching staff will implement him back into the pitching staff. In 2014, he was...
The Incredible Story Of Nick Bottari: Re-Learning How to Walk to Div-I Baseball
Shoreham, NY 2010— It was a standard Suffolk County varsity game between Shoreham-Wading River and Amityville. Up stepped freshman sensation Nick Bottari of Shoreham. He had made a name for himself the previous season by becoming the first eighth grader to play on the varsity team for legendary coach Sal Mignano. On this particular at bat, he fell behind 0-2 on the count when the pitcher tried to fool him with a change up. Bottari, fooled on the pitch, unleashed a vicious swing and was out in front. Strike three. The real story is what went on inside of Bottari’s body. He felt something pop in his back. Initially unfazed by the pain, the freshman remained in the game and went 4-for-5 with two HRs and set the program record with nine RBI on the day. Upon the completion of the se...
