By Steven Zaitz

In the world of Little League baseball, when players reach their 13th birthday, they are forced into retirement – barely teenagers yet too old to play. 

Those days are over. 

In just their second year of existence, the St. James-Smithtown Bulls won the 14U Half Hollow Hills Summer Little League Championship on Saturday, Aug. 5, at Otsego Park in Dix Hills. In dramatic fashion, the Bulls scored two runs in their final turn at bat to triumph with a 3-2 victory over Bay Shore.  

This team of grizzled “veterans” now join in on the summer-long celebration of softball and baseball excellence in Smithtown.

The improbable win capped off a 10-6 season following their inaugural season in 2022 when they stumbled to a 5-16 record. Head coach, Rich Conner, assembled this team and applied for admittance to Half Hollow Hills Junior C League because he wanted to prolong the baseball life expectancy for kids who “age out” of traditional Little Leagues when they become teenagers. 

His son Dylan, who plays second base for the 14U Bulls, wanted to keep playing without the joining the grueling and ultra-competitive travel leagues. It was out of Dylan and his friends’ desire to continue that motivated his dad to launch the team.

“Initially, we sent an email to everyone our league, I think we got three or four kids,” said the elder Conner, who played at SUNY Albany and has coached at St. Joseph’s and Hofstra universities. “Dylan reached out to some of the kids he knew and from there, with some word of mouth, we were able to put a product on the field. The first season we did this, we were a younger team and we struggled but nobody wanted to quit. One year later, look at what happened. We won the championship.”

To win it, the Bulls had to go through Bay Shore, who won 11 out of 16 in the regular season, including five in a row to end their year. The South Shore team trotted out their ace right-hander Tyler Drago to try and secure a ring. Drago was untouchable over the first four innings, striking out eight and allowing only two baserunners.

Smithtown starter Nathan LoRe, despite loads of heavy traffic, managed to keep Bay Shore off the board for three innings. He allowed the first two runners to reach and was relieved by Alex Peña, who allowed his inherited runners to score but nothing more. The only ball that was well struck in the inning was by cleanup hitter Christopher DiGiovanni, who Peña dueled for nine pitches until Giovanni knocked in the first run of the game with a single up the middle.    

“Alex plays at a very high level, and he’s a perfectionist,” Conner said. “That inning could have gotten out of hand, and Alex did a fantastic job of limiting the damage and keeping us in the game.” 

“I wasn’t happy giving up that hit,” said Peña, who missed a chunk of games in the middle of the year with an ankle injury. “We battled hard against each other, and [DiGiovanni] won that battle.”

The way Drago was throwing, it looked like Bay Shore was also going to win the war. 

“He threw pretty hard,” Peña said of Drago. “But not only that, he was locating his pitches where he wanted to, so he gave us a hard time.”

But after 106 pitches, Drago was out of the game after six innings. Clinging to a 2-1 lead, Bay Shore summoned righty reliever Jake LaGrange. The Bulls got to work on him immediately. 

Left fielder D.J. Savage, who saved three runs in early in the game with a nifty, two-out, bases-loaded catch, led off the seventh with a single to left. He was sacrificed to second by Jake Scandaliato.  

Peña drove a hard single to center and Conner, who is the third base coach, elected to hold Savage at third and not risk running the Bulls out of a very promising inning. After Peña stole second, Smithtown had the tying and go-ahead runs in scoring position for power-hitting shortstop Brandon Castoro. 

Castoro drove LaGrange’s  second offering deep into the left-center field gap and all the way to the wall – a two RBI double that turned a 2-1 Smithtown deficit into a 3-2 lead. 

Castoro pumped his fist proudly as he stood on second base. His teammates in the dugout and Bulls fans on the first base side screamed in delight. 

“I took the first pitch for a strike so Alex could steal second,” said Castoro. “After that, I was looking for something in the middle, and I put a good swing on it.”

The shortstop and his family were not even supposed to be at the game, as they had tickets to a Metallica concert in New Jersey. But after the team won their semifinal game against West Babylon three days earlier, the Castoros altered their travel arrangements. 

“I’m extremely glad I was able to play in this game,” said Castoro. “It feels great and refreshing to see all the work that we put in paying off with this championship.” 

Despite the sudden good fortune on the Smithtown side, it may have been lost on some folks that there was the matter of the bottom of the seventh. This was still a one-run game.

“I knew that there was still work to do,” Peña said. 

Named the game’s MVP for his work at the plate, on the bases and on the mound, Peña, who pitched a scoreless 3 2/3 innings to earn the win,  calmly struck out the first two batters on six pitches and got the last out on a harmless fly ball to Savage.

The game was over, and for Smithtown the rest of the day at Otsego Park was filled with bear hugs, Gatorade showers, smiling parents and photo ops with the championship trophy. 

“Over the two years that we’ve done this, the players and parents have become like a family,” Conner said. “Hopefully this will result in interest from the community and let people know that baseball is not over for a large portion of Smithtown kids at ages 13 and 14, if they don’t want it to be. Just look at what can happen.”

A championship happened — pretty good for a team that is competing in only its second year with most of its members playing at the ripe old age of 14

St. James-Smithtown Little League 2023 Accomplishments:

14U
Baseball: Half Hollow Hills Junior C Champions 12U
Baseball:
District 35 champs, Section 4E finalists

10U
Baseball:
District 35 and Section 4E champs, New York State “Elite Eight”

12U
Softball:
District 35 and Section 4E champs, New York State “Final Four”

11U
Softball:
District 35 Champs, Section 4E finalists

Host Location for 2023 New York State Softball Championship Tournament for 10U, 11U, and 12U