The Trusted Home of Amateur Baseball on Long Island – From Travel through College

search icon
advertise with us

News

Wantagh Looks to Return to the Top After County Finals Appearance

Special thanks to Metamorphosis Landscape Design for sponsoring this year’s series.

by Max Edelman

With decades of experience under his belt. head coach Keith Sachs is entering his 31st season as head coach of the Wantagh Warriors. In his 30th season in charge, Sachs led his group to a league championship before seeing their season end in game three of the County Championship.

“We made a great run.” Sachs said. “We won the first game against Clarke and then lost a couple of tough games. It’s hard. Every year our goal is to win a County Championship and we don’t want to be negative when we fall short because we had a great run and knocked off some really great teams along the way. But it was a great group of kids and we had a lot of success.”

With the consistent success that the Warriors have enjoyed over Sachs’ tenure as head coach, it’s not surprising that many former Wantagh players move on to the college level. However, the 2024 class was an extraordinary one. AJ Bardi, who won the Caulfield Award, the award given to Nassau’s top catcher, is now playing at Maine and Jack Tate who was the Diamond Award runner up in 2024 is at Adelphi University. Additionally, Paul Fontana is playing at Queens College.

Despite the losses, Wantagh is returning a majority of their starters, with a number of them having won awards last season. All-County shortstop Ryan Conigliaro, who is entering his final season with Wantagh, shined on the football field as well, where he is the starting quarterback for the Wantagh football team. Sachs is hoping that he can once again bring his athleticism to the baseball diamond.

“Conigliaro was phenomenal defensively for us last year.” Sachs said. “He has really good pop in his bat and he’ll probably bat in the middle of the lineup for us. He’s a legitimate All-County shortstop. Great athlete and he’s an All-State football player.”

When looking at one of the team’s main sources of power, look no further than Tommy Wunderlich. He was an All-Conference left fielder for the Warriors last season, and will be looked upon to provide more production in 2025.

“He hit some big home runs for us.” Sachs said. “He’s very big, strong and physical and the ball jumps off his bat.”

Ryan Tullo is a returning junior All-Conference player, who stood out as a sophomore and will look to build off of his immediate success in the second half of his varsity career. Sachs is hopeful to see even more growth in his big third baseman.

“He’s a six foot four third baseman with a great arm.” Sachs said. “He’s got a really good patient, old school batting style. He puts the ball in play, and had a two-HR game last season. He’s a legitimate candidate to have a breakout year. He had a great year last year, but his ceiling is unstoppable.”

On the mound, southpaw Christian Danzilo was undefeated before losing in the second game of the county finals. Sachs praised the senior for his strike throwing ability and Sachs is hopeful that Danzilo can step into the role of the team’s ace this season. 

Cole Spinelli featured as the team’s center fielder, and was also an All-State football player as well. And being promoted to the team’s number two pitcher will be Gavin Diegnan who is also a lefty. Diegnan has a good fastball and throws a wide variety of pitches. Both Danzilo and Diegnan are expected to feature at first base as well.

Sachs believes that the biggest strength for his team this season is their experience. With a long list of returning starters, Sachs believes that he has a strong group of players that will all be crucial in the success of his team.

“We have a lot of good baseball players that know how to play the game.” Sachs said. “They know how to bunt, hit and run, cover bases, play defense. We play really good baseball and our goal is to win all of the one-run games and not give away those runs. But we’re returning a good amount of people so the experience should be good. We just need a couple of guys to step up and be great.”

The Warriors will open their league season on April 1 against Mineola.