Nicolette Picone and Dominick Carbone pitching in to get Coastal Carolina into NCAA softball and baseball regionals
Nicolette Picone, left, and Dominick Carbone of Coastal Carolina Credit: Coastal Carolina Athletics
A pair of lefthanded pitchers from Long Island have made Conway, South Carolina, home.
Kellenberg alum and Bethpage native Nicolette Picone — a senior on the Coastal Carolina softball team — entered the NCAA Tournament leading Division I with 28 wins. Rocky Point’s Dominick Carbone, a sophomore who is 5-0 with five saves and a 2.18 ERA, has become a cornerstone of the Coastal Carolina baseball team’s bullpen.
Both former Newsday All-Long Island selections — Picone in 2021 and Carbone in 2021, 2022 and 2023 — have enjoyed sensational seasons.
Picone said: “Working since my freshman year, not really having many starts and all that, just seeing how far I’ve come, both physically and mentally, has just been really exciting to see and just impressive, honestly.”
Carbone said: “I’ve been staying more consistent. I’ve been talking to my coaches more, working a lot more with them, and they’ve just been on top of me a lot more. We have an analytics guy and we have [pitching coach] Matt Williams, and they’re doing a great job coaching and really helping us all out.”
Picone, the Sun Belt Pitcher of the Year, tossed four complete-game victories in four days to lead the seventh-seeded Chanticleers to the Sun Belt Tournament title last week and their first NCAA Tournament appearance since 2012.
Picone entered Saturday 28-10 with five saves, a 2.43 ERA and 172 strikeouts in 239 innings pitched, a significant jump from 103 2⁄3 innings last year, 84 2⁄3 as a sophomore and 79 2⁄3 as a freshman. She said the biggest strides over her four years have come mentally, learning how to handle different roles and understanding that errors are part of the game.
Picone has made 36 starts, including 25 complete games, in 47 appearances this year. Entering the tournament, she was tied with Boston University’s Kasey Ricard and Madilyn Reeves of Miami (Ohio) for the second-most complete games nationally and ranked third in innings pitched.
She takes immense pride in being a workhorse.
“I love playing time. I love being out there, and it’s just something I’ve always done,” she said. “Especially in travel ball, you only have like two or three pitchers, and you have three games a day — you need to know how to put the work in. And it’s just something I never thought twice about.”
The Chanticleers (42-18), the No. 3 seed in the four-team regional hosted by No. 14 Duke, began the postseason with a 6-3 loss on at Friday against Georgia. Picone took the loss after allowing six runs (five earned) and eight hits in three innings.
The lefthander bounced back in Saturday’s elimination game against Howard, tossing a five-inning complete game in a 9-1 victory. She allowed five hits, one earned run and no walks.
Dominick Carbone Credit: Coastal Carolina Athletics
Coastal was scheduled to play Duke in another elimination game Saturday night.
As a freshman last year, Carbone went 5-1 with a 5.06 ERA and 35 strikeouts in 37 1⁄3 innings. He has 42 strikeouts in 33 innings this year.
Carbone, who throws around 92-93 mph and topped out at 95 this year, throws a sinker and slider. A starter at Rocky Point, Carbone loves the adrenaline rush that comes as a reliever.
“I would like to consider myself fearless and energetic,” he said. “Because as a reliever, I feel like my job — I control the momentum of the game and my job is to get outs and hype the team up, maybe help the offense get a little energy for the next inning.”
Carbone spent last summer as the youngest player on the Hyannis Harbor Hawks in the Cape Cod Baseball League. He again will play for Hyannis this summer.
Having dealt with back injuries as a high school underclassman, Carbone admitted he thought about quitting baseball at one point. But he realized by his junior year that he could potentially play in college, thinking: “I can do this and really become something.”
Carbone’s time at Coastal has been invaluable. His trajectory keeps pointing upward.
“Best experience of my life,” Carbone said. “I wouldn’t change it for anything.”
Coastal (44-11) is ranked 11th nationally by D1Baseball.com and projected to host an NCAA Regional in two weeks.
n LIers powering LI teams
The Molloy baseball team is the No. 7 seed in the NCAA Division II East Regional. Sean Welsh (Clarke) owns the single-season program home run record with 15. James Sill (Division), the unanimous ECC Pitcher of the Year, owns a 5-2 record with a 1.52 ERA, 0.89 WHIP and 67 strikeouts in 59 1⁄3 innings.
The Farmingdale State baseball team was eliminated in the NCAA Division III Regional. Richie Heyder (Sachem East) finished with a team-high .441 batting average. Skyline Pitcher of the Year Johnny Dougherty (Kings Park) went 4-4 with a 2.85 ERA, 1.03 WHIP and 79 strikeouts in 60 innings.
Skyline Pitcher and Rookie of the Year Madison DeMaio (Sewanhaka), 23-9 with a 2.32 ERA, helped lead the Farmingdale State softball team to a No. 4 seed in an NCAA Division III Regional. East Islip’s Madison Sturtz hit .380 with a .998 OPS for a Rams team that was eliminated on Saturday.
Ben Dickson is Newsday Sports' general assignment reporter. He joined Newsday’s high school sports staff in 2023 after graduating from Maryland, where he covered several of the Terrapins' teams.
