Central Islip baseball snaps 40-game losing streak with victory in 'Strike Out Cancer' game
The Central Islip baseball team honors its loved ones who have suffered from cancer during the third inning of a non-league game in Central Islip on Tuesday, April 28, 2026. Credit: Brittney Dietz
For the first time since April 17, 2024, the Central Islip baseball team is in the win column, and it came on a great stage.
Senior first baseman Ian McGee blooped a tiebreaking two-run double in the bottom of the sixth inning to give host Central Islip a 3-1 win over Huntington in a non-league game on Tuesday night. Senior righthander David Solomon locked down the victory with a perfect seventh to snap the Musketeers’ 40-game losing streak.
However, that is only half the story.
It was Central Islip’s second annual “Strike Out Cancer” game, in which the program uses a game as a platform to raise money to donate to the Stand Up To Cancer charity organization. The inaugural Strike Out Cancer game raised over $1,100 last year, and this year’s edition has eclipsed $1,200.
Cancer has affected countless families, including that of Musketeers coach Frank DeModna, who drew up the idea for this fundraiser when he took over as head coach last year. His wife, Jennifer DeModna, is one year removed from beating thyroid cancer and is also 15 years removed from defeating kidney cancer.
DeModna himself survived non-hodgkin’s lymphoma four years ago. Both his sister, Deana O’Sullivan, and mother, Nancy DeModna, are breast cancer survivors. His father-in-law, Ronald Florek, is both an esophageal and prostate cancer survivor.
“It’s an amazing cause,” DeModna said. “I wouldn’t be standing here if it weren’t for cancer research. CAR T-cell transplants are new medicine, and it’s kept me alive for four years. Stand Up To Cancer gives money to that research, and that’s how we’re here.”
Central Islip (1-12) did not wear its typical jerseys with numbers, but rather custom gray shirts with purple lettering reading “Strike Out Cancer.” During the middle of the third inning, both teams lined up on the baselines outside their dugouts, with each player holding up a sign with a name written on it. Those names were all people in those players’ lives who had been affected by or lost to cancer.
McGee honored his late grandfather, Trevor Hilton, who died of cancer in 2009.
“This really means a lot to me,” McGee said.
Solomon allowed just an unearned run on two hits and two walks, striking out four in a complete game on 95 pitches.
McGee knows the devastation of cancer well, as he lost his aunt, Juana McKelvey, to the disease. His grandparents, Sara Rodriguez and John Solomon, have suffered from it, too.
“There were a lot of people in my family who I wanted to stand up for and win for them,” Solomon said. “We all worked hard for this, and we all came together and wanted it for our loved ones.”
Mike Anderson is a high school sports reporter who has covered 12 sports so far at Newsday. He was the sports editor of Stony Brook University's campus newspaper for two years.
