JJ Gatti throws blanks as Chaminade tops Kellenberg
Chaminade's JJ Gatti in action during the CHSAA baseball game between Chaminade and Kellenberg on Wednesday, April 6, 2022. Credit: Doug Cioffi
As it was the end of the 2021 CHSAA baseball season, so it is at the dawn of the 2022 campaign.
Last spring Chaminade swept a strong Kellenberg club in the best-of-3 championship series. The Firebirds again are serious contenders, but over the past two days the Flyers have swept them in their two regular-season meetings.
The starting senior battery of righthander JJ Gatti and catcher Brian Heckelman helped Chaminade take two games in as many days by pitching and hitting Chaminade to a 4-0 win on Wednesday at chilly Cantiague Park.
Gatti pitched five scoreless innings with nine strikeouts for the win and Heckelman broke a scoreless tie in the fifth inning with a clutch two-out, three-run triple to get the job done. Over the 14 innings the teams played, Chaminade (3-0) didn’t allow Kellenberg (1-2) to push a run across.
“We had a couple of very good days, but I wouldn’t be surprised at all if we see them at the end,” Chaminade coach Mike Pienkos said. “I feel great about the way we’re playing. We’ve hit one through nine and the pitching has been very good.”
Kellenberg actually had Gatti in a tight spot right out of the gate in the bottom of the first. Steven Hardiman drew a leadoff walk and Paul Napolitano worked the righthander to a full count. But on a hit-and-run, Chaminade shortstop Nolan Nawrocki tracked down Napolitano’s flare between shourtstop and third base and threw to first to get Hardiman before he could get back for a double play.
Gatti, a Dayton commit who wears his emotions on his sleeve on the mound, was a different pitcher after that. He got nine of his next 13 outs on strikeouts.
“I started on the wrong foot,” Gatti said. “I was very pumped up and overthrowing. That double play really picked me up and allowed me to settle into a rhythm. I used my fastball to set up my changeup for a bunch of the strikeouts.”
The team marked Heckelman’s birthday before the game with everyone receiving gift bags with home-baked cookies and a grade school photo of him inside. They really got to celebrate him in the fifth inning after Vinny Roman’s single over shortstop and Brady Steinert's single between short and third loaded the bases. Heckelman drove a pitch on the outside corner to right, where it sliced away from diving rightfielder Matt Ingram and off his glove for a three-run triple.
“I stayed calm by envisioning the pitch I wanted and what I’d do with it,” Heckelman said.
“There are some kids that, in pressure situation, you want to see them at the plate – Brian is definitely one of those,” Pienkos said of the Towson commit. “He’s a real leader.”
Until the fifth, Kellenberg lefthander Brendon McCann had pitched a gutty game, including getting a pair of strikeouts with two runners in scoring position in the fourth with the Flyers dugout chirping. As he walked off he raised one finger to his lips as if to say “shush.”
Chaminade’s Michael Sweeney doubled and scored an insurance run in the sixth and Antonio Tufano threw two innings to finish the shutout.
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.
