Angelina Bendetti's slam puts exclamation point on Wantagh's big win
Wantagh's Bella Bartilucci is greeted at home after her grand slam during a Nassau Conference II softball game against host Carey on Monday. Credit: Peter Frutkoff
Like the rest of Wantagh’s lineup, Angelina Bendetti doesn’t feel pressure with runners on base.
With the bases loaded and down in the count 0-and-2 in the top of the sixth inning, Bendetti was in her comfort zone.
“I like those moments,” Bendetti said. “It adds character to the game and makes it more fun.”
She added to the fun by smacking a grand slam just beyond the centerfield fence in Wantagh’s 18-6 win over host Carey in Nassau Conference II softball on Monday. The slam gave Wantagh a 13-5 lead.
“I thought it was going out at first, but I thought the double I hit earlier was going out too,” Bendetti said. “[First base coach Raymond Rathgaber] was telling me to run and I tripped over the base, so I’m glad it went out.”
Normally a catcher, Bendetti has been playing first base this season because she tore her left ACL playing volleyball in September.
The senior’s double in the third inning one-hopped the rightfield fence. She later scored on a RBI groundout by eighth-grade pitcher Lucy Olore to give Wantagh (9-4) a 7-1 lead.
Wantagh was rolling from its first at-bat, as Emma Priest hit a triple off the base of the centerfield fence. She scored the first of four runs in the first inning on a wild pitch.
Priest made hard contact all game, except for her fifth and final hit when a check-swing turned into a perfectly placed bloop single right behind the circle, scoring two runs.
“That was an accident, I tried to pull my swing back,” said Priest, who went 5-for-6 with three RBIs and scored two runs.
Casey Kissinger went 3-for-4 with three runs and Adrianna Oronges went 3-for-5 with two RBIs and three runs as Wantagh scored at least 10 runs for the seventh time this year.
Caylee DeMeo went 2-for-3 with an RBI triple and two runs and Sabrina Chapman hit a two-run single in a four-run fifth inning for Carey (10-4).
“I think a big part of their hitting is that they don’t feel the pressure to have to do everything themselves because they know they have the whole team around them,” Wantagh coach Christine Moran said.
“Everyone on our team is really talented,” Priest said. “If one person doesn’t get a hit, the next person is there to pick them up.”
Matt Lindsay is a high school sports reporter who joined Newsday in 2022 after graduating from Stony Brook University.
