West Baseball Looks to Stay Unbeaten After Half Hollow Hills East Three-Game Series

While students will spend the week off of school for Easter-Passover recess, West baseball will be hard at work, trying to keep its undefeated season going, facing off against Half Hollow Hills East in a three-game series starting Monday.

West is coming off a season opening three-game sweep of Smithtown East and a 6-5 win over Hauppauge on April 14.

“The East series was unbelievable and very stressful,” West coach Al Nucci said. “Those guys have a great team and are the defending League 3 champions. In my mind they are the team to beat, so to win the series was big, to sweep it was gigantic.”

The Bulls got three well pitched games from Nick Zito, Doug Zhong, and James English in the series win. English then picked up his second win of the season in the victory over Hauppauge. English has a 1.85 ERA on the year, while Zito and Zhong are pitching to a 2.00 and 2.33 ERA respectively.

Nucci said that he expects to pitch Zhong, English, and fourth year varsity player Anthony Gatto against Half Hollow Hills East. He also said that he expects those three to anchor the pitching staff all year long. Gatto has been used exclusively out of the bullpen so far this year and has saved each of the last three victories without giving up a run.

Gatto is also one of four Bulls players hitting over .400 this season along with Tyler Reinig, Nick Dellasperanza and Ricky Alessi. Gatto and Alessi are tied for the team lead with five runs and Dellasperanza leads the team with six RBI’s.

“We have had positive contributions from a variety of players,” Nucci said. “What is really important is different guys picking up the slack on different days.  It seems like in our first four games all of our starters have done their parts in big spots, whether it was defensively or offensively.”

Nucci said he did not know a lot about Half Hollow Hills East, as West is new to League III and still picking up the tendencies of its opponents. Hills East comes into the series 2-4 after a three game set with Smithtown East. Hills East dropped two out of three in its opening series against East Islip. Its lone win came when it pounded East Islip 13-7 in the middle game.

Michael Parviale was 3-for-5 with four RBI’s and Mike Ceparano went 3-for-5 and was a home run short of the cycle in Hills East win.

“It doesn’t matter who we play,” Nucci said. “As long as we go out and execute, stay composed, and play hard, we should be ok.  The game plan from the get go was to win series, so that is what we are going to try and do.  If we are fortunate enough to sweep, then that is a bonus.”