Connetquot baseball tops Sachem North, sets up winner-take-all Suffolk Class AAA championship rematch
Connetquot's Dylan Wilkinson pitches against Sachem North during the Suffolk Class AAA baseball championship on Saturday at Middle Country Athletic Complex. Credit: Elizabeth Sagarin
Dylan Wilkinson induced a game-ending groundout and hopped off the mound. The senior had put the finishing touch on a two-hit gem, with three walks and eight strikeouts, in Connetquot’s 7-0 win over Sachem North in the Suffolk Class AAA baseball tournament at the Middle Country Athletic Complex in Selden Saturday night.
Wilkinson mixed three pitches and had command of the zone in a dominant performance that enabled Connetquot to advance out of the loser’s bracket in the double elimination tournament into a winner-take-all championship game against Sachem North Sunday at 3 p.m. at the Middle Country Complex.
Wilkinson was so good that he flirted with a perfect game through 4 2/3 innings before Travis Szober laced a two-out single in the fifth inning.
“I felt great my last two starts,” Wilkinson said. “And tonight, my slider, my two-strike pitch, was on.”
The Connetquot defense was flawless. Shortstop Jagger Adamo started a 6-4-3 double play to end the sixth and outfielders Andrew Amarando and Joe Scarabino contributed running catches against 30 mph winds that wreaked havoc on fly balls.
“Our defense made some amazing plays,” Wilkinson said.
The Connetquot offense scored first with two outs in the top of the second. They strung together three straight singles to take a 1-0 lead. Brandon Bartick singled and moved to third on a single by Santino Capozzola. And, after Capozzola stole second, Aaron Pace lined the first of his three hits to leftfield to drive in Bartick. Sachem North leftfielder Lucas Singleton made a perfect throw to the plate to nail Capozzola and limit the damage.
“My teammates have a running joke that I can only hit in the big spots,” Pace said. “I love the big spots, so I’ll take it.”
Connetquot put together a four-run fourth to take a 5-0 lead. Scarabino reached on an infield error and DJ Filippone singled to put runners on first and second. Bartick drove in Scarabino with a single to make it 2-0 and Capozzola moved the runners to second and third with a neat sacrifice bunt.
And there was Pace again in the big spot. He delivered a line-drive RBI single to make it 3-0.
“I’ve been hitting in the playoffs and I’m very confident in the pressure situations,” he said. “I have the confidence.”
Amarando added a line-drive two-run single to cap the rally for the 5-0 lead.
“We were fired up,” Connetquot coach Rob Burger said. “We were surprised by a fire department escort from the school to the field. And I told the guys how much the community is behind us. The place was electric.”
A standing room only crowd filled the bleachers for this crosstown rivalry. The teams have played five games this year, with Connetquot winning three of them.
The only one that matters now will be the one they play Sunday afternoon.
It’s one win to move on to the Long Island Class AAA championship.
Gregg Sarra is Newsday's high school sports editor and has been on the beat since the mid-1980s.
