STONY BROOK, N.Y. — Tommy Ventimiglia attended Stony Brook baseball coach
Matt Senk's youth camps for years, from age 5 through 11 or 12.
Now a senior at Longwood High School, Ventimiglia stands 6-foot-3, 195 pounds. And he's a heralded arm in Stony Brook's incoming class for the 2021-22 academic year after signing a national letter of intent last month.
"The kid has grit," said future teammate Matt Brown-Eiring, a Stony Brook freshman infielder who pitched opposite Ventimiglia in the 2019 Suffolk County Class AA semifinals. "He's going to give it all he's got whenever he's out there. He'll challenge you no matter the situation and will compete. He commands his pitches well and does anything he can to get you out."
Already on the Seawolves' radar from his youth days, Ventimiglia further impressed the Stony Brook coaching staff with his unflappability as a closer during his sophomore season with Longwood High School in 2019.
Ventimiglia went 4-0 with a 0.28 ERA and two saves in League 1. He was 4-1 with a 1.24 ERA and 49 strikeouts in 39 innings overall in 2019.
"A dude out of the pen," Stony Brook pitching coach
Tyler Kavanaugh labeled Ventimiglia.
Ventimiglia vividly recalls pitching back-to-back games against Smithtown East in the opening round of the county playoffs. He entered with the bases loaded and two outs in a 2-0 game in the bottom of the seventh. Two fastballs and a curveball later, he had secured that win. Then, the following day, Ventimiglia won as the starting pitcher as Longwood advanced to face Connetquot.
Shortly thereafter, in the county semifinals, Ventimiglia closed out a 1-0 win while facing elimination that forced a winner-take-all Game 3.
It was in that series-deciding game that Brown-Eiring outdueled Ventimiglia, who nonetheless limited Connetquot to five hits in a complete game in a 2-0 defeat.
Ventimiglia subsequently befriended Brown-Eiring.
"We started off just playing against each other," Ventimiglia said. "Then, I reached out to him after that series. I was like, 'You're a dude. I know Stony Brook is looking at me, and I know you're going there. I just want to be closer with you and be cool with you.' We talk here and there. It's a cool relationship."
Ventimiglia's fastball now sits at 88 to 91 miles per hour, and tops out at 92. He also possesses a curveball, slider and changeup.
In October, he competed with the San Diego Padres Scout Team at the WWBA World Championship held at the Boston Red Sox's spring-training facility in Fort Myers, Fla. Ventimiglia allowed one hit in 3 1/3 scoreless innings and recorded eight strikeouts in his team's lone win in three games in group play.
He has been in contact with scouts and is considered a Major League Baseball draft candidate. But continued limiting of rounds next June from the draft's traditional 40 may help tilt the decision toward attending Stony Brook.
"No matter what happens, I'm in a good spot," he said.
Ventimiglia is considered one of the top arms on Long Island.
And remaining in the area to pitch for the Seawolves is special, especially considering his long history of attending camps led by Stony Brook's Senk on campus as a youngster.
"I just always felt comfortable there," Ventimiglia said. "I grew up there. I was always at the field. I would watch games. They made the [College World Series] run in 2012. I didn't really get it when I was young. But as I got older, I started to realize who these guys were, who the coaches were. I wouldn't want to be anywhere else."
