“He just basically told us, ‘Look, you gotta stay focused, put things together, play smart,’ and just reminded us that we needed to be in this game,” shortstop Anthony Prato said. “And it worked. All of a sudden guys started putting together good at-bats, and we came alive.”

Third baseman Daniel Bakst started the rally with a leadoff walk. He stole second and scored when Travis Zurita singled to right field. Zurita came around to tie the game at 2-2 when No. 9 hitter Ethan Wallis poked a single to left. Prato got the big hit with a triple to left center that drove three runs in, and he eventually scored on a single by Isaiah Russell.

“I was just looking for a pitch to drive into the outfield to get the runner in,” Prato said. “I got a low pitch that I could golf out there, and I smoked it to left center.”

Horace Mann immediately answered back as it put together a pair of singles in the top of the fifth to knock freshman starter Oliver McCarthy out of the game. Roventini called upon junior reliever Dylan Martinelli to bail Poly Prep out of a two-on, one-out jam, and he did just that by inducing a pair of popups to short.

“I’m coming in there just thinking that I need to throw strikes,” Martinelli said. “We’re strong defensively, so I knew if I just threw strikes and kept the ball low, we’d get out of it.”

For Poly Prep, that was just the first win of the season in its quest for a fifth championship. Roventini, who was not shy about talking about trying to four-peat last season, feels good about continuing that streak, but he has backed off talking about it so much.

“I think they know the expectation by now,” Roventini said. “We don’t need to beat it in, so we don’t really talk about it a lot. Last season was different because we had seniors going for four, but this year it’s a bit of a younger team, so we try to preach day-by-day instead.”

That certainly doesn’t mean that expectations have been scaled back. Roventini still feels very strongly about his team’s chances. It’s hard to blame him. Poly has a strong team with a balanced lineup that has speed at the top and power in the middle.

In addition, it has Nick Storz, one of the best pitchers in the area, if not the best. He also swings a big bat.

“Our goal is five,” Roventini said. “We’re a little bit young, we’re not as deep as we might have been in the past, but we’ve got quality over quantity. We have tremendous athletes at certain positions, so even though we might not talk about the championship like we did last year, that doesn’t mean that we don’t think we can do it again. Our goal is five.”

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