Dalatri Pitches CBA Into The Record Books

Photo’s above: Dalatri, Martorano and celebrations. Photo’s courtesy of Ken Cook

TOMS RIVER – Junior right-hander Luca Dalatri knew he had a tough assignment ahead of him going up against undefeated and top-ranked Don Bosco - ranked No.9 in the Max Preps national top 20 - in Saturday’s NJSIAA Non-Public A final at Toms River East High School.

As if the daunting task of defeating the 29-0 Ironmen for the group title wasn’t enough pressure on Dalatri already, He also knew that with a win the Colts would become only the second team in Shore Conference history to sweep all five possible championships - regular season division, county tournament, conference tournament, NJSIAA Sectional and NJSIAA Group – in one season.

However, the only heat Dalatri was feeling Saturday was his blazing fastball as the University of North Carolina recruit completely shut down the powerful Ironmen to pull off one of the biggest upsets in recent memory as the Colts beat Don Bosco 7-0 to capture their third NJSIAA Group A title in program history and first since 2009.

The win also gave them the illusive “Quintuple Crown” for winning all five titles for the first time since Wall Township ran the championship table in 2004.

“I just put those things behind me,” Dalatri said. “I don’t really focus on things like that. It really hasn’t sunk in yet; we’re all kind of in shock right now. We’re just enjoying the moment right now; maybe tomorrow or the next day it will sink in what we did. But we were never worrying about it, we were just focused on playing our game.”

Relying primarily on his fastball and off-speed breaking ball, Dalatri was magnificent in using both sides of the plate and keeping hitters off balance. He allowed four hits, struck out 12 and walked only one in seven innings of work picking up his 9th win of season without a loss. Of his 12 K’s, nine of them came with the fastball. He faced 26 batters – five above the limit – and put the icing on the cake by striking out Don Bosco catcher Frank Nigro to end the game.

His two-year record now stands at 20-0 completing his second consecutive undefeated season of his career for the Colts. Saturday’s shutout was his second of the season and it lowered his earned-run average to 0.89 on the season.

Dalatri’s battery mate and fellow UNC recruit Brandon Martorano helped derail Don Bosco’s magical-season run by belting a two-run homer in the top of the first with two outs and a 0-2 count. The junior signal caller easily cleared the fence in right field for his 11th dinger of the season driving in leadoff batter Cid Porter, who had reached first after being hit by a pitch, to hand Dalatri a 2-0 lead even before he took the mound.

CBA ends the season on a 14-game winning streak and during that run Martorano has hit eight of his 11 home runs. In the Colts 2-0 sectional win versus Bishop Eustace on Wednesday, the right-handed slugger drilled his 10th homer of the season to give the Colts a 1-0 lead in the bottom of the second.

“On the bus that’s actually what I was dreaming about; so I guess my dream came true,” Martorano said. “It’s always a dream come true to hit a home run in a championship game and to have two in championship games is above and beyond. It’s more than you can ask for; it’s phenomenal.”

The Colts (27-5) tacked on another two runs in the top of the second which seemed to shell-shock the Ironmen and left them reeling.

With one out, senior third baseman James Miller beat out an infield hit before Porter laid down a perfect bunt with Miller going to third on the wild throw to first by starting pitcher and Seton Hall-bound Cullen Dana who absorbed his first loss of the season.

Dana (9-1) seemed shaken at this point leading to some wildness with two hit batsman and walk producing two more runs for the Colts and a 4-0 lead in which Don Bosco never recovered from.

In fact, the Ironmen never had a runner reach third base and only two baserunners advanced as far as second base the entire game. They did manage one baserunner in each of the first six innings but Dalatri had no problem disposing the next batters in the lineup and never was in any real trouble. In the fifth, he induced a picture-perfect 6-4-3 double play turned in by the double play combination of shortstop Matt D’Angelo and second baseman Andrew Buccellato.

The Colts added one run in each of the fifth, sixth and seventh innings with Dalatri starting things off in the fifth with a solo blast that cleared the right-centerfield fence at the 350 foot mark. That shot knocked Dana - who came into the game with a 0.23 ERA - out of the game and brought in Vitaly Jangols in relief.

In the sixth with one out, Porter lined a triple into the left-centerfield gap all the way to the warning track and was brought home on a line drive RBI single down the third-base line by Buccellato to stretch the lead to 6-0.

“I couldn’t have imagined it any other way honestly,” said Buccellato who was playing in his final game as a senior. “It’s incredible. We’re all best friends, we’re all brothers and I couldn’t have pictured this ending any other way than it did. We were expected to win every game all season then coming into this we’re finally the underdogs and we had nothing to lose, we just went out and played and all the pressure was on them.”

Senior left fielder Shane Turk led off the seventh lining a double all the way to the wall in right-center before designated hitter Trey Nelson capped things off with an RBI single to make it 7-0.

For head coach Marty Kenney, who became the state’s second-winningest all-time coach with 755 wins in last Thursday 4-0 win over Red Bank Catholic in the SCT final, it’s his third state championship (1977, 2009).

“Don Bosco is as good as anybody in the state, maybe the tri-state, but this was no “David and Goliath, we’re pretty darn good,” Kenney said. “They weren’t going to take a back seat to anyone. We don’t fear anybody which is nice and that was their mind-set when they stepped on the field. They knew they were playing well and you could see it the way they played with so much confidence.”

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