Sophia Nicastro, Madison Martins lead Calhoun to first Nassau Class AA softball championship
Calhoun head coach Michael Pisano gets a water dump after his team wins the Nassau Class AA softball championship against MacArthur at Farmingdale State on Monday. Credit: Peter Frutkoff
The moment was even sweeter than the Calhoun softball team imagined.
Sophia Nicastro wound up and fired to the plate, inducing a flyball to Alexa LaBarbera in right field. And the celebration was on.
The top-seeded Colts claimed their first county title with a 7-4 win over No. 3 MacArthur in Game 2 of the Nassau Class AA championship series Monday night at Farmingdale State.
“This is a crazy feeling,” LaBarbera said. “Especially being a senior and playing five years for Calhoun, it’s a feeling like no other.”
Calhoun (15-12) will face East Islip in the Long Island championship game at 2 p.m. on Saturday at Martha Avenue Park in Bellport.
Nicastro’s triple in the third plated Ruthie Small to tie the score at 1. Nicastro scored on Kaitlyn DiPaola’s single and Madison Martins added an RBI single to take a 3-1 lead.
“Getting ahead and having that rally going was amazing,” Martins said. “There was so much energy in the dugout.”
Olivia Macken’s RBI single in the bottom of the fourth cut MacArthur’s deficit to 3-2.
But Calhoun answered right back in the fifth. Martins plated Nicastro on a two-out single and scored on Selma Radoncic’s double to left for a 5-2 lead.
Small doubled and scored on an error in the sixth to make it a four-run lead. Ashley Powers’ two-run double cut the deficit to 6-4 in the bottom of the sixth for MacArthur (12-14). With two outs and a runner on second, Gianna Spaventa lifted a flyball deep into the right-centerfield gap. LaBarbera made the trek from her spot in right field to rob Spaventa of her third hit with an inning-ending catch on the run.
“I saw the ball go up and it just had to be caught,” LaBarbera said. “It was a gamechanger. I just put my head down and ran and hoped for the best. I knew that if I didn’t have it, our centerfielder Megan Hobdy would have my back.”
Martins went 3-for-3 with two RBIs and two runs scored and Nicastro struck out five and allowed four hits in a complete game.
Moments after the final out, the Colts surrounded coach Mike Pisano a few steps off the field. Each player took turns with a buzzer, shaving Pisano’s head.
“My hair is my best feature, it’s going to be devastating,” Pisano said. “It was a promise I made to them before the season started. I didn’t think it was going to be this year, but to get this far… this is a really special group of kids and I couldn’t be more proud of them.”
Matt Lindsay is a high school sports reporter who joined Newsday in 2022 after graduating from Stony Brook University.
