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D’Agostino denies them
Former Schalick standout spins no-hitter to complete a big week for RCSJ-Cumberland; includes ‘Keeping Track,’ an update on the former Salem County high schoolers playing in college
By Al Muskewitz Riverview Sports News
Lucas D’Agostino could not have envisioned what was to come later in the day. He was a little tired; the team had gotten back late from the first game of the series in North Jersey. Warming up in the bullpen his arm felt good and he thought maybe he could have another quality start he’d been racking up in recent weeks. But what came next, no way.
D’AGOSTINO
The freshman from Schalick went out and fashioned his first career no-hitter and the program’s first in four years as he blanked Bergen 4-0 Saturday to help RCSJ-Cumberland lock down a No. 3 seed in the upcoming Region XIX baseball playoffs.
“I had a good day, got really lucky as well,” the right-hander said. “We had gotten back late the night before, at like 11:30, so we were all pretty tired. I got to the field at like 9 a.m. and thought, you know what, it sure would be a day. It’s always the days you don’t expect it. It’d be nice to do something in my final start of the regular season.”
It was the Dukes’ first no-hitter since Andrew Simone threw one at Suffolk in 2022. D’Agostino threw 89 pitches in the seven-inning game – 63 for strikes — allowed three base runners on a walk and two legitimate errors, and struck out a career-high 10. He faced 23 batters thanks to a third-inning double play and retired the last 12 in a row after a fourth-inning error.
His defense kept the gem alive with two incredible catches in the outfield on back-to-back plays in the fifth inning. Leftfielder Christian Willis laid out for a ball smoked to the gap and on the next pitch centerfielder Kory Jenkins came running in to make a shoestring grab on a sinking liner. D’Agostino struck out six of the last seven batters, including the side in order in the seventh.
“Sometimes to start the game I get into some deeper counts, I’ll have like a 15-, 16-pitch inning,” he said. “I got back in the dugout and I only had thrown nine pitches and I had a strikeout. I came back in I was like hey, you’re efficient right now, feeling good, so that was really it. I didn’t feel like I have wipeout stuff today or everything’s going to go right. The pitch count’s been low, we’re on a good pace, but there wasn’t any mind-shattering revelation.”
He starting sense something special was brewing around fourth inning. His teammates did too and as tradition has it started avoiding the subject in the dugout.
“I was kind of sitting in my corner, sipping my water, just waiting to go back out,” he said. “My spot would came up to hit and I was like I don’t know if I want to move from my spot on the bench right now. Some people came around talking about the Sixers, nothing about the game, just like, ‘hey, how about the Sixers,’ stuff like that.”
He didn’t have a lot of time to celebrate the gem. He had to start at first in the nightcap.
It was his fifth quality start in a row (4-1, 0.80 ERA). In his start before the no-no, he threw a complete-game two-hitter at Ocean CC in a game that helped Salem CC on its journey to secure the last spot in the region playoffs. That’s Pitcher of the Week material. He’s now 5-2 with a team-leading 1.88 ERA (second in the league) and 53 strikeouts over 52 2/3 innings.
“I can’t think of a start so far this year that I really struggled,” he said. “I’ve felt pretty good all year. I’m just excited for the playoffs, really.”
Interestingly, his latest pitching run about corresponds to the time he became a part of the regular lineup playing first base when he wasn’t pitching and hitting. Since April 8 he is batting .259 (15-for-58) with 22 RBIs and his first college homer (off Union) while going 3-1 on the mound with a 0.98 ERA.
“I starting really swinging it well in practice probably around the 20-game mark,” he said. “I’ve been hitting, but I wasn’t really taking it like I’m going to be a hitter on this team. I think I’m here to pitch, but I can help the team on the side. I didn’t think there was any shot, then we had our starting first baseman go down and right at the same time I had started to kind of put it together hitting-wise in practice.
“It’s definitely an adjustment (hitting and pitching); there’s a lot more soreness involved. It’s a lot for the body. I’ve had some pretty good starts since I’ve been hitting. It’s, of course, easier when you’re always on the field to stay locked in mentally, especially when you need to come in and pitch. The Middlesex game, I started the final game of the series and I played the first two games in the field so I had already seen all the trends of the hitters, how they swing and react to different pitches. It’s more of like an intel operation almost being on the field and then being able to pitch later in the series.”
Keeping Track will be updated. Technical difficulties preventing updates beyond Salem CC, RCSJ-Cumberland
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