Tuesday, June 24, 2025
For the past five years, the Valley Stream Central baseball team has been in and out of the Nassau Countywide Conference, a developmental league that doesn’t have a playoff berth. The Eagles won it in 2021 and finished third there two years later, but that success has yet to carry into the upper leagues.
This season is arguably the team’s best-ever in the division as the Eagles sit 14-0-1 to move within a win of another title entering the final week of action. After going 0-18 in Conference AAA2 last year, the Eagles have steamrolled the competition this spring to the tune of 10 run-rule victories and an average margin of victory of just over nine runs.
Coach Tino Muscatelli is now hoping his latest stay in Countywide is his last for a while.
“We go into the Countywide league and we just crush every team, and then we come out and play very good competition,” he said. “We have more depth, we have a stronger cohort of younger kids coming up, so our goal is to come out this year and stay out of the Countywide.”
Central’s only blemish came on April 4, when it allowed two runs in the bottom of the seventh inning for an 8-8 tie at Great Neck North. The Eagles have won 12 straight since, including last week’s two-game sweep of Uniondale by a combined score of 17-1 and a soggy 14-4 against third-place Westbury that was highlighted by junior Justin Camacaro’s grand slam.
“Our depth is really what separated us, the back end of the lineup,” Muscatelli said of the stretch.
The Eagles close the season with a home-and-home set against Great Neck South.
Central has been getting plenty of contributions from an offense that is averaging just over 12 runs a game and a pitching staff that has yielded just under three a contest, including one shutout and a stretch of allowing just one run in four straight games in mid-April.
The top four batters in the order are all batting over .500, including seniors Justin Owolabi (.535) and Zion Phillips (.528), sophomore Jaiya Vera (.571), and junior Jayden Garcia (.531), who has bounced back from a slow start. Senior Adam Norton is topping them all at a .583 clip from the seventh spot.
Leadoff hitter Owolabi has five home runs in his last six games to up his season total to six and also leads the team with 25 RBIs and 26 runs scored.
“He’s leading the group for us,” Muscatelli said. “Very aggressive at the plate and if he sees a first-pitch fastball, he doesn’t hesitate to swing at it. It’s been very successful for him.”
Senior Xavier Mason is 5-0 on the mound and Phillips and sophomore Julian Vera have three wins apiece, with the latter allowing just three earned runs and five hits with 36 strikeouts in 18 1/3 innings for a 1.15 ERA.
Junior Elijah Castillo is a strong defensive catcher who is also batting .387 with a homer.
