Grant, Apicella, Oyster Bay finally top Carle Place

The faculty at Oyster Bay High School may have grown suspicious about the spate of students - many of whom play softball - who suddenly "came down with something" late Thursday and weren't able to make it to class Friday. A few students might show up Tuesday looking a bit tanned. But excuse the Lady Baymen, Teach. They beat Carle Place.

Yes, the Carle Place that had won three straight Nassau Class B softball titles. The school that's made a habit of taking Oyster Bay's lunch money in almost every sport.

The Frogs beat the Oyster Bay field hockey team in the playoffs; pitcher Kerri Apicella was the goalie. Apicella, Joshlyn Grant and Keri Bongiovanni star for the basketball team, which lost to Carle Place in the playoffs. Bongiovanni plays for the volleyball team, which reached the semifinal, and . . . you guessed it.

Last year Oyster Bay's enrollment fell a few students short and the Baymen dropped to Class C. Oh, they won the Nassau title. But that wasn't the brass ring.

So when Apicella finished her three-hitter yesterday, recording the final out of Oyster Bay's 6-0 win over Carle Place, those were tears of joy and relief.

"Make no mistake, the Carle Place kids, coaches and parents are first-class people," Kerri's dad, Rick, said after the game, "but we love to beat them."

After the second-seeded Baymen wrapped up their semifinal game against Wheatley on May 20 and learned top-seeded Carle Place also advanced, setting the stage, the girls got giddy. And Apicella channeled her inner Muhammad Ali:

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"We'll win the two games, then we'll win , and eventually we'll go to states and win it."

The prediction took a blow in Game 1 of the finals when they lost 3-0, four-hit by Ashley Cole. Then they took a 1-0 lead into the seventh in Game 2 but couldn't hold it, allowing the Frogs to tie it with two outs.

Some of the familiar feelings crept in. "I had a knot in my stomach," Apicella said. "We usually make some mistakes and they take advantage."

But with one swing in the bottom of the frame, an opposite-field liner that sliced into the leftfield corner, Grant shushed the doubt and made moot the past.

It was more than a walk-off homer, coach Tim Brady said. "We were deflated," he said. "Then she goes up there right away and gives us that good feeling back. That home run told us, 'Yes, we can do this!' "

Grant believes the momentum carried into Game 3. Apicella put the Baymen on the board with a two-run shot in the fourth and Bongiovanni's two-run single in the sixth gave them a five-run cushion.

"They took the other sports from us, and this being senior year, we couldn't let softball get away," Bongiovanni said. "We were confident with the lead, but it's Carle Place, so you never know. I was counting down the last six outs . . . When it was over, I couldn't stop jumping."

One of the dynamics of the team is its unity. Beyond the shared desire to one-up a rival, there's the longtime friendships. "It's a family," said senior Shady Denegri, eliciting a chorus of "awws" from her teammates.

"These are all my best friends who I've grown up with since I was a baby," said Apicella, who attended Catholic school in ninth grade but missed Oyster Bay too much.

She went to preschool with Stephanie Damiani, Maddie Howes, Caitlin Madden and Joanna Sugar and met most of the others in grade school. Bongiovanni's mom, Linda, was their PAL coach from second grade.

"We've been friends through it all," Apicella said . . . In bad times, good times and, on Friday, truancy.