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| Photo Credit: Newsday |
Watch the Throne isn’t just a classic album by Kanye West and Jay-Z.
It’s also the game plan West Islip must employ if they plan on returning to the Long Island Championship once again.
The Lions are coming off a banner year in which they captured the Suffolk County title for the first time since 2008–when Nick Tropeano was striking out everyone in sight.
The difference is this year’s team will be returning their horse–James Kory, who went 10-0 (only pitcher in program history to do so) and took his game to an unprecedented level in the postseason when he was untouchable.
Sixth year Head Coach Shawn Rush is confident that his team will be led by their rotation once again.
“We have a lot of depth there–we’ll get a ton of quality innings from our arms,” he said.
One pitcher who was not a part of the championship team last year was junior Ray Weber–who was with the JV squad, but Rush lauded his ability.
“He’s a pretty talented guy, and he’s very cerebral. He knows how to attack hitters,” he added.
The team will have the challenge of replacing their seven graduating seniors. All of those players were starters. Last year’s co-ace Nick Arnold is now pitching at Post University in Connecticut. Additionally, they lost the dynamic 1-2 duo of Sam Ilario and Matt Klein.
“It’s going to be tough to re-create that 1-2 punch from last year,” said Rush. “These two guys were flirting with .500 all year–even through the playoffs.”
How do they remedy losing two players of that ilk?
“We need to have more consistent production through out the lineup,” he said.
That will certainly take pressure off whoever will be replacing those two atop the lineup.
The Lions will be counting on Jake Billello, returning All-League 2b, to provide some punch from the middle-of-the-order. Rush noted that he “played tremendous defensively” as well.
The team will be looking for Alex Barbera to step up and play a key role this season.
Despite winning the Section XI title, the Lions moved down to League IV due to enrollment. That means they will get to see Hills West up-close and personal. And it will occur in the season’s first week.
“I know they will want to return the favor,” said Rush in regards to defeating the Colts 5-0 in the title game. “Coach Migliozzi will have his guys ready for week one,” he added.
He noted that East Islip will be a tough task as well.
Bottom line, is that West Islip is the reigning champions and everyone will be gunning for them. They are coming off their best season since ’08 and will be looking to repeat.
(They did not repeat in ’09. An unknown bunch from Centereach unseated them. A left-handed pitcher by the name of Vinny Messana was the League III MVP :))
