A blowout win over Francis Lewis has Bayside baseball off to a promising start in what might be Queens’ most competitive public-school division.
Senior Jonathan D’Angelo (from the mound) and sophomore John Paul Kolotouros (from the plate) were dominant on March 27, helping Bayside to a 9-0 victory over the previous season’s division titleholders.
The Commodores lost Game One of the two-game series on March 25, but the nailbiting victory — 2-1, with an unearned run making the difference — might be forgotten after Bayside’s showy performance two days later.
The Commodores scored three runs in the first inning off of Lewis starter Christian Conroy, with Kolotouros driving in the first run and senior leftfielder Abraham Coen following with a shallow outfield shot that dived just under the centerfielder’s outstretched glove. Two runs scored on the play.
Bayside added two more runs in the third inning, thanks in part to a deep-left-field triple by sophomore Ryan Bonwich, playing in his first game of the season. Two innings later, Kolotouros produced the largest bat crack of the night, with a two-RBI triple to left-center field that would surely have been a home run in a park with an outfield wall.
“He was only throwing fastballs. He didn’t really have a breaking ball,” Kolotouros said. “I was sitting dead red.”
Kolotourous, a first baseman, also drove in a run in the fourth inning.
When the game was called due to darkness in the bottom of the sixth inning, Bayside had built up a nine-run lead, with mercy-rule-threatening baserunners to spare.
Strong pitching from D’Angelo retained Bayside’s wide margin. He displayed an effective combination of cutters and curveballs, keeping Lewis’ hitters off-balance all game long. D’Angelo played second base on March 25, when junior Alexander Pangourelias started and turned in a similarly impressive performance. He gave up two hits and notched 11 strikeouts, and only one of his runs was earned.
“He should win games like that,” Bayside head coach Pat Torney said.
Between Pangourelias and D’Angelo, Bayside seems to have more than enough pitchers to go around.
“We got great got pitching again. Pitching is our forte. … We’ve always been a Dodger kind of team,” Torney said, referring to the Angelenos’ penchant for good pitching and defense.
“It’s encouraging, because we weren’t really hitting in the beginning,” Kolotouros said. “If we get good hitting this year, we’ll be fine.”
