Tyler Camastro-Szwejkowski tosses two-hitter to lead St. Dominic to state CHSAA championship

Tyler Camastro-Szwejkowski threw his final pitch, and it was grounded to short, and then his teammates came streaking toward him before they all formed one big pile of joy on the St. John’s turf.

A two-hitter in the state CHSAA championship game by the sophomore righthander? That’s a forever accomplishment.

“I couldn’t have done it without this team,” Camastro-Szwejkowski said.

Indeed, this St. Dominic baseball team as a whole owned a forever accomplishment. The Bayhawks claimed the program’s first state title with a resounding 9-1 win over Nichols Saturday at Jack Kaiser Stadium.

“My big thing to the kids is this is all about making memories,” fifth-year coach Joe Fusco said with assistant coaches Dylan Iacovone, Zac Budano and R.J. DelGiorno standing nearby.

“I tell them, ‘When you’re old and you have your whole family around you hopefully and you’re on your last few days of life, you can’t take your money with you; you can’t take your family with you. But you’ll always have your memories.’ What I’ll think back on is how happy I am that these 25 kids were able to have this memory for the rest of their lives.”

St. Dominic (23-14) had one job to do. Nichols (18-8) had two.

The Vikings from Buffalo won their 10 a.m. semifinal 8-7 in eight innings over St. Francis Prep, a game that had been postponed Friday due to the heat. But they couldn’t get the second half of the equation done.

“I’m just super proud of these guys,” Nichols coach Brian Brazee said. “The deck was kind of stacked against us with the way today played out just in terms of having to play a doubleheader. … That’s a really good program over there. They earned it. They deserve it.”

Fusco said Camastro-Szwejkowski (6-3) is someone they “just have full belief in.”

He settled in after a bit of a rough start. Trenton Ruffolo launched a homer to left for a 1-0 lead in the first. In the second, Camastro-Szwejkowski issued two walks and hit a batter with one out. Fusco came out for a chat and put on a pickoff play at third.

The runner got caught between third and home and the runner at second got caught by catcher Mike Scarry trying to advance to third — double play.

“That changed the whole game,” Camastro-Szwejkowski said.

Junior centerfielder Christos Vangelatos stepped up in the home half against starter Ryan Swanson and rocked a two-run double to the left-center gap.

“Chris Vangelatos is our motor,” Fusco said.

The Bayhawks added two more on fifth-inning sac flies by Camastro-Szwejkowski and Scarry. And they tacked on five more in the sixth. Vangelatos drove in his third run with another double.

“Ever since freshman year, we worked so hard trying to become closer, better, and just like more of a family every year,” Vangelatos said. “And this is the year that we stuck together. We had the most tough times this year. We started out 9-9 (in the NSCHSAA).”

They overcame injuries. They overcame everything. They took two straight elimination games to rule the league and ultimately ruled the state.

“I don’t look at it as one guy,” Iacovone said. “We had a lot of guys with great individual seasons. It’s a family. It’s a group of individuals who come together like a fist.”