Red Foxes catcher Hudson Hayduk tags out Prime’s Aiden Miletic at the plate in the fourth inning.
By Rich Bevensee
Rob Cavallo and his son Nick could have second-guessed themselves when they took over the foundering Long Island Baseball Prime 11U ballclub three years ago, especially when the team failed to win a single game that fall.
Here’s why they didn’t give up. What the Cavallos saw was a team full of mismanaged potential. They saw special players like Josh Lojan and C.J. Castillo who were not given any direction.
It’s hard to imagine what that ballclub looked like then because now this Long Island Prime squad is a fundamentally sound, high-functioning powerhouse, and one of the best 14U squads to stroll through Diamond Nation in Flemington.
On Saturday evening, Lojan pitched a complete-game three-hitter, Castillo went 3-for-3 with a triple and Long Island Prime extended its winning streak to 11 games after an 8-1 pool play victory over the Red Foxes of Bedford, N.Y., in the 14U Summer Bash at ‘The Nation.’
“We all put in the extra work, we all put in the extra time, we go 100 percent all the time, and it comes out in the game naturally,” Castillo said.
Long Island Prime won its 12th straight and improved to a gaudy 32-4 after its second pool play victory of the evening, an 18-1 decision over PAC Journeymen 2029/2030 of Rochester, N.Y.
Prime will almost certainly be the top seed for the 14U championship bracket playoffs, which begins with semifinals at 12:15 p.m. and 2:15 p.m. on Sunday. The final is slated for 4:30 p.m.
Lojan said that both he and the team endured a slow start in the spring. Maybe he’s saying that because the team gave up 20 runs in its first four games. It’s still difficult to find fault with a ballclub that went 13-1 in June.
“I think we had to trust the process,” Castillo said. “We started off bumpy and we learned we can’t get down on ourselves. You just gotta keep going and pushing, and eventually we got on a win streak.”
During the team’s current 11-game win streak, the Prime pitching staff has allowed 11 runs total while the offense is averaging seven runs per game.
In explaining the stinginess of the defense, Lojan said the entire pitching staff – and especially Logan Walters and Zach Bodner – has been in sync for the last several weeks.
C.J. Castillo slugs a fifth-inning triple for Long Island Prime.
“We’ve got dogs out there,” Lojan said. “All of them are very hard workers and they’re always locked in.”
Against the Foxes, Lojan struck out four while allowing three hits and three walks over seven innings.
“I started off the spring not so good – a lot of walks, not a lot of strikeouts,” said Lojan, a rising sophomore at West Babylon. “I started to slowly improve after that. I’d say it was mostly my mechanics. I started to get more rhythm and I trusted the curveball more. From there I started having better and better outings. This was one of my better outings all year. I’m in a groove right now.”
Lojan, mixing a fastball, curveball and changeup, may have been at his best when the Foxes tried to build a rally. He permitted a run in the third inning when Alex Smythe delivered a sacrifice fly, but outside of that, the Foxes went 0-for-4 against Lojan with runners in scoring position.
“He’s been getting better and better every start,” Cavallo said. “From the moment we take the field, he’s dialed in. He’s got his game face on and he’s coming at you and nobody’s gonna beat him.”
Offensively for Long Island Prime, Castillo led the way with three hits, including a fifth-inning triple when he hit a line drive into the left center field gap and used his impressive speed to coast into third. Castillo is a rising sophomore at East Meadow on Long Island.
“My approach is, think fastball and attack early in the count. That’s it,” Castillo said.
Also for Prime, Marco Diaz went 2-for-3 with a two-run double, Dylan Hanovic and Aiden Miletic each had an RBI double, and Walters doubled.
Cavallo and son both smiled when asked to assess just how far the team has come in the three years since they took over the program. Keep in mind, progress was not immediate. Their team failed to win a game in the fall of 2022.
“Work ethic,” Rob said. “I asked them, ‘Do you want to be special? Do you want to be a baseball player? And they told me yes, and I told them well then there’s gonna be hard practices, hard times and hard work. Nick and I are very lucky. We coach ‘em up and they play so hard for us.”
For the Red Foxes, who are based in Bedford, N.Y., Jax Rothschild went four innings and allowed five runs on five hits and three walks with four strikeouts. Nate Peters pitched two innings of relief and permitted three runs on three hits and no walks with one strikeout. Peters also doubled and walked.