Island Trees Ends Wantagh Baseball Season in Quarterfinals

The Wantagh and Island Trees baseball programs have battled each other in hotly contested playoff match-ups going back to the late 90s and this week was no different.

The schools separated by just three miles played the deciding game of their three game quarterfinal series Saturday morning and it was the dozens of fans from Levittown who made the short trip to that went home happy. 

The eighth-seeded Bulldogs (15-7-2) used a five-run third inning and staved off a late Wantagh rally to post a 7-5 win to advance to the Nassau County Class A semifinals against Manhasset. It will mark Island Trees’ sixth straight county semifinal appearance.

Second-seeded Wantagh (19-4) and Island Trees were separated by just three runs in the series. Island Trees Wantagh kept its season alive with a in the second game Thursday.

“These teams are very evenly matched,” said Island Trees head coach head coach Joe D’Auria. “We have a lot of respect for their program.”

“It was a couple good teams and anything can happen in these games,” said Wantagh head coach Keith Sachs. 

The Bulldogs five-run third inning was paced by RBI hits from Mike Jeannetti, Louis Mele and Steve Connelly. Wantagh starting pitcher Mike Davanzo was able to settle down and keep the Island Trees bats at bay until the top of the sixth when James Ragusa and Matt Bowen delivered clutch RBI hits to give the Bulldogs a 7-4 lead.

Bowen also stepped up on the mound with a complete-game six-hitter on four strikeouts. Wantagh was able to rattle Bowen in the fifth inning however with four runs on the strength of RBI singles by Ryan Cacchioli and Mike Stack as well as a sacrifice fly from Cody Cornacchio. Wantagh nearly tied the game in the inning but Island Trees got out of the jam when the Ragusa made a leaping catch in front of second base off a line drive from Adam Aponte with a runner in scoring position. 

“If it’s one inch over his glove we tie the game and it changes everything,” said Coach Sachs of the importance of Island Trees being able to preserve the lead after giving up four runs in the fifth inning.

“I lost a little composure out there,” said Bowen, who gave up three runs in the fifth inning to jump-start the Wantagh rally. “I was luckily able to get the composure back so we could get out of the inning with the lead.”

Despite the disappointment of the season ending Saturday, Sachs said he is proud of his team’s season and how the players kept battling. Wantagh, which is two years removed from winning a Long Island title, won the Conference A-1 division by three games over Garden City.

“We always set the goals so high that unfortunately [the players] sometimes feel like they failed if they are not the one team still standing but someday they’ll realize what a great season they had,” Sachs said. 

Island Trees, which to crosstown rival Division, will next take the field at Manhasset in game one of semifinals this Monday at 4:30 p.m. Mike Ahrens, who picked up the win in game one against Wantagh, is scheduled to get the start on the mound for the start of the best-of-three semifinal series.