Nick Drew's flare, Antonio Ducatelli's homer power Island Trees baseball over Clarke
Antonio Ducatelli hits two-run home run in bottom of fifth inning to snap a tie for Island Trees on Thursday, May 20, 2021. Credit: James Escher
A flare single. A home run down the right field line. One stellar pitching performance.
These were the things that marked Island Trees’ arrival on Thursday as a force on the Nassau baseball scene.
The Bulldogs had made a good start by winning their first eight Conference V games, but Thursday they got the acid test in a home game against powerhouse Clarke and ace Tyler Cox. Righthander Vinny Giambona kept the margin within one run and Island Trees finally dented Cox in the fifth with a run-scoring flare by Nick Drew and a two-run homer by Antonio Ducatelli to emerge with a 3-1 victory.
"I think we came of age today," Bulldogs coach Joe D’Auria said. "The way Cox was pitching — and after he hit that [fourth-inning] home run — I thought that one run might win the game for them. But the way our guys responded? This tells us we have arrived and the stakes have gone up for us. We've raised the bar."
None of it would have gone down if Giambona had not risen to the occasion and match the Rams’ West Virginia-bound righty Cox. The Bulldog junior threw a three-hit complete game allowing the one run on Cox’s long homer to right-center.
His only walk was a two-out intentional pass to Cox with one Ram on base and two outs in the sixth. He recorded 13 strikeouts, seven on called third strikes as he used a ‘slurve’ prodigiously to fool the Clarke hitters.
"He could throw it for a strike, bury it in the dirt or backdoor it," D’Auria said. "If he’s locating his fastball like he did today, he can be real tough."
One thing that might stay with Clarke (6-1) is the surprisingly raucous postgame celebration by the Bulldogs (9-0). And the teams will meet again at Clarke on Monday.
"There was no way to see us as anything but an underdog against a team like them and with Cox going," said Giambona, who set off a surprisingly raucous celebration after the final out by tossing his glove skyward. "This was the game we had circled, the game we had to win to show who we are."
One thing they certainly were was incredibly opportunistic. Mickey Montevago opened the home sixth by reaching on an error and he advanced to second on an errant pick-off throw by Cox. Then with two out, Drew looped a flare single over the infield and Montevago raced home to tie it at 1.
"He was dealing all game long and he’s one of the best around," Drew said. "I found a pitch and didn’t even get a piece — just a slap — but it was enough for Mickey."
On the ensuing at-bat, Ducatelli homered down the rightfield line on a breaking pitch to make it 3-1.
Cox allowed the three unearned runs in six innings with no walks and nine strikeouts.
"We’re a lot of juniors and we might be ahead of schedule right now, but you can’t argue with beating a great team like Clarke," Ducatelli said. "We know we’re going to need to do it again."
Roger Rubin returned to Newsday in 2018 to write about high schools, colleges and baseball following 20 years at the Daily News. A Baseball Hall of Fame voter since 2011, he has covered 13 MLB postseasons and 14 NCAA Final Fours.
