by Vinny Messana
Shoreham-Wading River’s second-year Head Coach, Kevin Willi, remembers watching Keith Osik and Eric Strovink play when he was seven-years-old on their way to the school’s first New York State title.
Now he has an even closer look at one of the top players in the northeast region and that’s his shortstop and ace, Brian Morrell.
“Pretty much every coach I’ve talked to is like, ‘we don’t know what to throw him,” said Willi.
(Photo Credit: Vinny Messana)
Thus is life when you have to face a player of Morrell’s ilk.
When I went down to watch him for this article, I was hoping there would be something juicy that would happen in the game so I could incorporate it into the feature.
The 2017 graduate did not disappoint as he smacked two HRs (his fifth and sixth of the season) in the first game of the DH and followed that up with a two-hit shutout with 19 Ks against an overmatched East Hampton lineup. He mixed his upper 80s fastball (touched 90) with a deadly 11-5 curveball in the high 70s. They stood very little chance.
‘Bats 4 Buddies’ will be accepting lightly-used baseball equipment at the Battle of the Border to donate to under-privileged kids in third-world countries
This has become the norm for Morrell, who is now 4-0 on the season and is batting .420 at the plate, since he came up as an eighth grader with an 81 MPH fastball.
“I was really nervous at first,” he said in regards to getting the call to varsity for legendary Head Coach Sal Mignano. “It was tough being the little guy, but the guys really helped me out and what they taught me went a long way,” he added.
Those teams were also very talented, as they had two Div-I caliber players in Nick Bottari and Tyler Osik.
Bottari went on to attend the University of Miami before transferring to Hofstra University and Osik attended Coker College and is now at Chipola CC.
They were both lauded for their bats, while Morrell is a dual-threat and was already a two-time All-State player entering this season.
Willi noted that Morrell was a bit stressed out after last season as he tried to decide which college he would like to attend. Some of the top schools in the country had been pursuing him and he didn’t want the decision lingering too long.
“Notre Dame was really into me,” Morrell said. “They expressed interest as a sophomore. They came down to the Team USA tryouts in North Carolina and I went 6-for-10 in the tournament. They ended up coming to a couple of my games last year,” he said. Their pitching coach, Chuck Ristano, is a Valley Stream native and Morrell stated they immediately connected. He also was impressed with the hitting coach, Jesse Woods.
Once that happened, he pinpointed the school as his top choice and the rest is history.
He noted that the coaches keep in frequent contact with him to make sure he is maintaining a GPA commensurate with Notre Dame’s standards for student-athletes.
“This was really important to my family,” he said in regards to selecting a University with a highly-regarded academic reputation.
Speaking of his family, he stated that without them , the Notre Dame-commitment would not have been possible.
“They support me all day. They are the main reason I’m going to college and without them I wouldn’t be going all over. They’ve been so helpful.”
During one stretch, Morrell pitched at the Area Code game tryouts in Massachusetts, then he went to the Perfect Game invitational the next day in Georgia and flew back up to Long Island the next day to drive back to Massachusetts for the second round of tryouts.
Morrell connecting on his sixth HR of 2016
There’s no doubt that the dedication has paid off. In addition to the traveling, he also spends plenty of time taking pitching lessons from Neal Heaton, batting lessons from Keith Osik and speed & agility at Infiniti Performance.
“When I go to Neal, I don’t even think of it as a pitching lesson–it’s like therapy,” he said. “He helps so much.”
All that specialization has helped him become a household name in the scouting circles. He has proven that he can really play, so the next question will be whether a team views him as a pitcher or position-player?
If it’s up to him, he would do both.
“I really like pitching and hitting,” he said. “I don’t know if I see myself as a shortstop–maybe more of a corner position,” he added.
That’s an argument, however, for another day.
In the meantime, Morrell has some unfinished business as he would like to follow in the path of his hitting coach and lead Shoreham-Wading River to their first NYS title since 1987.
