Massapequa captures the Class AAA Long Island Championship with a 7-0 victory over Connetquot ! 🏆
They advance to the NYS Semifinals next weekend in Binghamton against the winner of Pine Bush-Ketchum pic.twitter.com/JlcUKy76D6
— Axcess Baseball LI (@axcessbaseball) June 8, 2025
After a one-year hiatus, Massapequa (19-8) regained their status as the top public school on Long Island.
In what was a rematch of 2019, the Chiefs scored early and often as they cruised to a 7-0 victory over Suffolk Class AAA Champion Connetquot , who entered with wins in 5 straight elimination games. With the victory, Massapequa captured their 11th Long Island Championship and will advance to face Ketcham in the NYS Semifinals on Friday at Binghamton University at 10am.
Massapequa sent St. John’s-commit Thomas Harding to the mound. He worked around a walk in the first inning to put up a zero. His counterpart, St. Thomas Aquinas-commit Dylan Wilkinson matched the zero. It appeared we might have a classic pitcher’s duel on our hands.
That was not the case, as the Chiefs’ bats came to life in the second inning – with some assistance from defensive miscues from the Connetquot infield. After Mikey Smar’s struck out for the first out, AJ Conza reached on an error by the second baseman. Anthony DiNello followed with a well-struck RBI triple to deep left field to get the Chiefs on the board. Christian George followed with an RBI single to score DiNello and extend the lead to 2-0. A grounder off the bat of Vincenzo Della Porta resulted in an error by the shortstop that scored George to make it 3-0.
While the inning finally came to an end, Massapequa did not take their foot off the gas pedal.
Jason Romance started off the home half of the third with a single to left field. After a strikeout, Mikey Smar and AJ Conza followed with a singles of their own to load the bases with one out. That brought up DiNello, who stayed hot with a two-run single to left to score Romance and Smar, but Conza was thrown out attempting to advance to third.
End of 3: Anthony DiNello opens up a 5-0 lead with a 2-R single to left pic.twitter.com/AEJCPyMsYd
— Axcess Baseball LI (@axcessbaseball) June 8, 2025
Harding went back to work in the fourth inning, working around a two-out single by Dylan Cerone with a popout to second to end the inning.
They would add another two runs in the fourth inning. Della Porta got things going with a single to right field and he scored on an RBI double to left by John Neary. After a ground out, a hit by pitch of Romance brought up Harding, who helped himself with a double to the deepest part of the park in dead center. That opened up a 7-0 lead.
Connetquot had their best chance to score in the top of the fifth inning. DJ Filippone drew a leadoff walk. The next two batters were retired, but Aaron Pace and Jagger Adamo drew consecutive walks to load the bases. That was all for Harding, who gave way to Jack Scannapieco. The junior showed his toughness with a strikeout of Andrew Amarando to squash the rally and keep the game in hand.
Scannapieco wound up going a scoreless 1.1 innings, before giving way to Jack Corrigan who slammed the door shut with a perfect seventh inning.
Massapequa showed some incredible resiliency, as they were able to bounce back from a tough Game 1 loss in extra innings to Farmingdale in the Nassau County Finals. They have won their last 3 games in blowout fashion, showing once again why they set the standard for excellence on the Long Island baseball scene.
“It feels great,” said Harding following the game. “Starting with the loss last year, we’ve been putting in the work every single day, all offseason and all season and we are finally back on top,” he said.
DiNello noted that the team remained confident following their loss to Farmingdale.
“It was one game – we knew we had a three-game series. We lost one but the job was to win two, and that’s what we did,” he added.
The Chiefs will head back up to Binghamton, looking to claim their first New York State title since 2018.
