Joe Galeotafiore makes key plays to help St. Dominic baseball clinch CHSAA regular-season title
Joe Galeotafiore (3) and relief pitcher Daniel Onorato go wild after St. Dominic’s win over Kellenberg to clinch CHSAA title on Tuesday, May 7, 2024. Credit: Peter Frutkoff
The St. Dominic baseball team gave a master class in single-minded focus on Tuesday. It encountered unforeseen adversity. A game plan had to be scrapped. Adjustments were made on the fly. However, the Bayhawks stood one victory away from the CHSAA regular season title and they weren’t going to let the opportunity get away.
Senior righthander Danny Onorato was summoned into a game he was never supposed to pitch in and delivered 3 2/3 innings of scoreless relief and Joe Galeotafiore had a two-run single and made quick decisions on the bases to score the go-ahead run as St. Dominic laid out to beat visiting Kellenberg, 4-3, at Wang Athletic Complex.
The Bayhawks (18-2, 14-2) clinched their first regular season title in six years and will be the No. 1 seed in the NSCHSAA playoffs that begin next week and receive a bye into the May 19 semifinal round of the double-elimination tournament.
Kellenberg (13-4, 10-4) may have missed its chance to snatch the regular season title away but still can clinch the No. 2 seeding and the other semifinal bye.
“Kellenberg is a great team and we expect to see them come the playoffs, but this is a very full-circle moment for those of us who took over the program three years ago,” St. Dominic coach Joe Fusco said. “When we came in there were 27 players in the entire program and there was a lot of doubt about whether this program would (recover) to be here. Now we have twice as many players and this.”
“We were a laughingstock four years ago,” said Onorato, who was one of the 27 players Fusco and his staff inherited. “No one took us seriously and we didn’t either. . . . because we’d bought into that (image). We’ve come a long way but the job isn’t done. There’s a championship to win.”
Victor Frederick, the Bayhawks’ ace and 2023 Newsday CHSAA Player of the Year, got the start for the potential clincher, but wasn’t himself because of illness. He would last only 3 1/3 innings and was replaced by Onorato with St. Dominic still up 3-2 but only one out and a Firebird in scoring position. Onorato allowed the inherited runner to score on Jeremy Ernst’s second run-scoring single, but that was it.
Onorato knew he was scheduled for the fallback game, Wednesday against the Firebirds, but arrived at the field prepared to go in.
“This was our day to get it and we were going to have to go all out,” he said.
Fusco said he approached Onorato in the second inning when Frederick seemed off a bit.
“I asked him ‘are you ready to shut the door?’ and he answered, ‘I’ve been ready for three years,’” Fusco said.
Onorato got out of a bases-loaded jam to end the fourth with the score tied at 3. With a one-run lead courtesy of Galeotafiore, the Iona commit stranded a runner in scoring position to finish the sixth and again to finish the game.
Galeotafiore made the defensive play of the game in the top of the fifth when he caught a line drive to start an inning ending double play and then scored the go-ahead run in the bottom of the inning when a potential inning-ending ground ball went for a throwing error.
“We thought we’d get one more and that was our chance,” he said. “When I saw the ball go through I had to get in.”
“That kid just executes,” Bayhawks assistant coach Dylan Iacovone said. “This program doesn’t get here without that guy.”
Roger Rubin returned to Newsday in 2018 to write about high schools, colleges and baseball following 20 years at the Daily News. A Baseball Hall of Fame voter since 2011, he has covered 13 MLB postseasons and 14 NCAA Final Fours.
