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Comsewogue Begins New Era as Spartans

Special thanks to Metamorphosis Landscape Design for sponsoring this year’s series

by Joe Bello

Joseph Caltagirone is heading into his 10th season at the helm of the Comsewogue Spartans baseball program. As Caltagirone and the Spartans come off what was a tough season, finishing 5-15, they look to be competitive in a tough league this spring.

“Coming off of a winner-take-all County Championship season in 2024 in which we lost to Hauppauge,” Caltagirone said, “We knew it was going to be tough replacing the departing senior class.” 

The Spartans graduated eight starters in the field and their top five pitchers after the 2024 season. With the only returning pitcher only throwing a total of two innings on the mound that season.

“The inexperience in our pitching staff showed as we went through growing pains throughout the 2025 season.” Caltagirone added, “It did however give our pitchers much needed experience. We return our top four pitchers from last season heading into 2026, one of them being now freshman Joey Rizzo.”

Rizzo, who played up with the varsity team as an 8th grader last spring, led the team in innings pitched, wins and ERA last season. He also was 2nd on the team in strikeouts. Rizzo finished with 35 innings pitched, 2 wins and 20 strikeouts.

“It’s not commonplace to have one of your better pitchers at the varsity level to be a middle schooler” Caltagirone said, “But that’s what happened last season when Joey Rizzo competed for and earned the role of our number three starter when one of our senior starters went down in the preseason. I look for him to improve this season using his experiences from last year to build upon a successful year two on varsity.”

“Joey is a competitor on the mound who doesn’t get rattled and attacks hitters in all quadrants of the strike zone.” Caltagirone added, “I look forward to him contributing to our success for the next four years.”

Although, the Spartans will be without Joe Perri this year, who was awarded All-County and All-State honors during the 2025 season. Perri started at catcher last season, after being the team’s 3rd baseman for the three years before that. He hit .550, with a 1.455 OPS and 20 RBI last season. He was also great behind the plate, throwing our 43% of attempted base stealers. He is now playing Division-I baseball at the University of Albany.

Luis Reyes, now playing at Suffolk Community College, also graduated. The outfielder hit .270 with 7 RBI last season. They also graduated Rowelvis Vasquez, their shortstop, who hit .250 with 2 home runs and 8 RBI. Grady DePaulo, hit .280 last season, he has graduated as well. Lastly is Gavin Dandrea, who didn’t play much last season due to injury, but came up clutch quite a bit in the playoffs during his junior year. 

Ryan Autino, was awarded All-League honors last season as a sophomore. He batted .385 with a 1.000 OPS, he scored 17 runs with 8 RBI as well. He also contributed on the mound, converting all three save opportunities that he had. 

“Ryan is one of the hardest working players around and continues to make improvements in strength and skill.” Caltagirone said, “Only as a junior, I look to him to take more of a leadership role this season as his ability and character speak for itself while continuing to increase his productivity on the field. He is well respected and really learned from Joe Perri and some of our 2024 class on how to prepare and use practice to get better everyday.”

Autino will move into the starting catcher role this season following Perri’s departure. 

The senior pitching duo of Travis Amato and Josh Lubell will also look to have a big impact on the Spartans success this season. Last season, Amato threw 33 innings on the mound, picking up 2 wins and striking out 16. While Lubell had 35 strikeouts and 1 win in 30 innings in 2025. Both of them also play outfield, with Amato hitting .308 with 7 RBI last season.

“Sophomores Tyler Trimboli and Anthony Martinelli will look to make the jump to varsity to help contribute.” Caltagirone said, “As well as seniors Ricky Gritzmacher, David Farmer, Brayan Dilone and juniors Alex Gottlieb and Rob Bianco. Newcomer Freddy Javier, who is a senior, has looked good during winter workouts and will be in the mix for opportunities both as a pitcher and hitter.”

As mentioned by Caltagirone, the Spartans began their winter workouts back in December. 

“With what was a question mark a year ago is now considered our strength, pitching.” He said. “As long as our staff throws strikes and makes pitches I feel we can be competitive in a tough league. We have unsettled positions around the diamond and we graduated much of our offense from last season so we have our work cut out for us to replace that production but I’m confident in the work and effort that the players are putting forth to make that happen.”

Comsewogue opens up their 2026 season in a non-league matchup against Islip on March 30th.