Tuesday, June 17, 2025
Massapequa’s high school teams may or may not be calling themselves the Chiefs next season, but the area could start using “Hamlet of Champions” if this keeps up.
It started with the football team capturing the Long Island championship last fall and carried over into the spring with both lacrosse teams winning their respective county titles and the softball team walking if off two days ago to continue their journey upstate. So, it would stand to reason that the baseball team didn’t want to be left out of the party either.
They joined in a big way by routing Suffolk County-champion Connetquot 7-0 at Farmingdale State College Sunday to punch their ticket to the Class AAA New York State semifinals at Binghamton University, where they will face Section I champ Ketchum this Friday at 10 a.m.. The Chiefs knocked off both top seeds in Farmingdale during the county finals and Connetquot en route to the 11th Long Island title in program history.
“What we’ll always remember is where they started out this season and where they are now as far as focus and motivation,” said Massapequa coach Tom Sheedy moments after getting the celebratory water jug dumped on him. “The work ethic was always there and [we] applied in the game what we did in practice.”
The Massapequa battery of senior southpaw Thomas Harding and junior catcher Anthony DiNello did the most damage, but Connetquot helped by committing two huge errors in the second inning to ignite the Chiefs’ three-run rally. Junior Anthony Conza reached when Thunderbirds second baseman Santino Capozzola booted his one-out grounder and scored on DiNello’s triple to deep left.
Senior Christian George singled to plate courtesy pinch runner Kenny Gein and stole second before scoring himself when Connetquot third baseman Brandon Bartick misplayed a throw by shortstop Jagger Adamo following senior Vincenzo Della Porta’s fielder’s choice grounder.
DiNello came up again with the bases loaded and one out in the third and drove in two more when his hot grounder found the third-base hole.
“I knew I was going to get some off-speed stuff, so I was waiting on it, sat back on it, and drove it in the hole,” Dinello recalled.
Junior shortstop John Neary and Harding added RBI doubles in the fourth to cap the scoring.
Harding yielded three hits and four walks with two strikeouts over 4 2/3 innings. He was pulled after walking the bases loaded with two outs in the fifth, but junior Jack Scannapieco, who beat Farmingdale the previous Sunday to send Massapequa to the Island title game, fanned senior Andrew Amarando to end the threat.
“It was mostly my fastball,” Harding said. “The changeup was pretty good, the curveball was here and there, but just mixing my pitches well really helped.”
Junior Jack Corrigan needed just nine pitches to retire Connetquot in the seventh to seal the victory.
