Ray Kim's gem helps St. Dominic baseball force decisive Game 3 in NSCHSAA baseball championship
Ray Kim of St. Dominic pitches during the first inning of Game 2 of the NSCHSAA baseball championship series against Kellenberg on Monday, May 25, 2026, in Hempstead. Credit: Michael A. Rupolo Sr.
Ray Kim stood on the mound for St. Dominic in an elimination game, Game 2 of the best-of-three NSCHSAA baseball championship series against Kellenberg. He wasn’t sweating over the pressure to throw zeros and keep the Bayhawks in play for another day.
“To be honest, we play really competitive travel ball, so I’ve always played in those competitive games,” Kim said about his Showtime Select team. “So the pressure, it felt like any other travel game that I was playing. There was really no pressure. I just knew what I had to do.”
The URI-bound junior righty from Syosset coolly fired a five-hitter, struck out eight, didn’t walk anyone and delivered an RBI single in a seven-run fifth. And so fifth-seeded St. Dominic took a 7-0 win over the defending champion, No. 2 Firebirds Monday at Hofstra’s University Field.
So the series is tied at 1-1.
“We’re going to win it,” Kim said. “We’re going to win it.”
The deciding game is scheduled for 11 a.m. Tuesday back on this same turf.
“Yeah, we’re confident,” said Bayhawks coach Joe Fusco, who also wasn’t sweating right after Saturday’s 11-4 loss in Game 1, with Kim ready and righties Connor Ackerman and Tyler Camastro also available to start in the series.
“I mean, listen, Kellenberg is a great team. It’s going to be a great Game 3. I think everybody kind of anticipated this series going three games.”
So it will indeed be the Hofstra-bound Ackerman or Camastro starting the finale.
Lefty Joe DiSanza is scheduled to go for Kellenberg (17-10).
“Doesn’t really have much experience,” Firebirds coach Pat Miles said. “He was hurt earlier in the year from a pitching standpoint. We started mixing him in midseason. We’ll see how far he can go. I wouldn’t expect him to go six or seven innings.”
Kim had his own injury issue around midseason, experiencing forearm tendinitis that limited him to work at second base and as a DH. But he returned to pitch in the postseason. He sure looked 100%.
“I knew Kellenberg was going to get the best Ray Kim today,” Kim said.
St. Dominic (20-14) got the best Chris Parisi for a good while.
The Kellenberg senior righty and Queens commit was locked in a compelling duel with Kim, holding the Bayhawks to one single over four innings. Then came the seven-run uprising, built largely on six singles. It turned into a 4 2/3-inning outing for Parisi.
It was still 0-0 when Lou Gounaris stepped in with the bases loaded and one out. The count went full against the sophomore shortstop from Roslyn.
“I just knew I had to have a good at-bat for my team because I was down at the No. 9 spot today,” Gounaris said. “Any fastball that’s close, I’m just going to put it in play.”
He put it in play for a two-run single. Dom Muccia, Dylan Weinstein and Kim followed with run-scoring singles, and the 13-batter half-inning continued to unfold.
Kim only needed one of the runs.
“He topped 92 [mph],” Fusco said, “so when you’re throwing a fastball 89 to 92 for the first four innings and then you could throw other pitches for strikes like he does, at the high school level, that’s very difficult to hit.”
If the Firebirds need inspiration, they can flash back to last year when they won Game 3 against Chaminade to take the title.
“I guess if you want to look at it as an advantage, we’ve done this before,” Miles said. “So we’ll see who shows up [Tuesday], but that’s definitely one thing we have going for us.”
