Today I was down at Shoreham-Wading River‘s practice and watching the varsity and JV team take ground balls and batting practice. It hit me that for a League VII school, they have had a ludicrous amount of high-end players over the years.
They have had three Carl Yastrzemski Award winners (Keith Osik, Mike O’Reilly, Brian Morrell), and a handful of other high-end Div-I players (Eric Strovink, Bryan Sabatella, Tyler Osik, Nick Bottari just to name a few) and they also have four current players committed to Div-I schools.
Obviously, there are external factors that give certain schools advantages such as the socio-economics of the city, the average income of the parents, demographics, the quality of the school’s head coach/athletic director. Here is my best effort to compile a list of some of the other best high schools to recruit from…
Bayport-Blue Point
Just like SWR, they are a League VII school that consistently churns out quality ballplayers. While they have not had the same fortunes of Yaz Award winners, there’s a reason they won three straight Suffolk Class A titles–including back-to-back Long Island Championships. They had the Paul Gibson Award winner in Jack Piekos in 2014, All-State P.J. Weeks in 2015 and last year had All-State Dylan Rooney. It has been a great run for BBP, they have been producing diamonds in the rough for several years now.
Commack
The Cougars have arguably the best pitching staff on Long Island with Brian Morrissey, Peter Theodorellis, James Cardinale and Johnny Pohlman. They also have TCU-commit Tim McHugh. They have always had a good reputation when it comes to developing Div-I players. Players like Rick Riccobono, Charles Galiano and Jesse Berardi have helped pave the way for this new-era for the Cougars. They have a golden opportunity in front of them this year and there will be plenty of scouts at their games this year.
Connetquot
Coach Bob Ambrosini has done quite a bit of winning in his tenure. He’s closing in on 600 wins and we awarded him with the Lifetime Achievement Award at our Awards Banquet. They have won two Suffolk Championships in the past five years. They had a down year–by their standards in 2016–but they fielded a very young team. The talent is always there, Connetquot is a baseball school through-and-through. Their class of ’15 was pretty extraordinary with players like Dave Brehm, Brandon Morse and Travis Bruinsma, while last year they graduated Marc Wagenstein and Christian Nissen. Now they have up-and-comers like Joe Savino, Trevor Adamo and the Yallon twins. Things are always looking up for Connetquot. They have produced a few professional players in the past two decades in the Ambrosini brothers and James Lomangino.
Division
Growing up in Suffolk County, I only heard stories of the dominance of Division HS. Once I began doing this, I started to realize what kind of machine they really are. They won the Long Island Championship in 2015 and followed that up with an 18-win season in 2016 but was upset by Garden City in the postseason. They produced James Varela, Anthony Papa, James Piscitelli, Kieran McLaughlin, Ronmel Ocampo and Joe Spitaleri ifrom those teams and also had the Diamond Award winners in ’15 (Papa), ’14 (Mark Martinez), ’09 (Kevin Chenicek) along with six times in the ’90s. Just a dominant program that will produces hard-nosed kids.
East Islip
They had an unprecedented run under Sal Ciampi Sr., when he guided the Redmen to 21 League titles, three Long Island Championshps and had seven (!) Carl Yastrzemski Award winners and made the playoffs 25 times in 31 years. They have produced Tony Graffanino and Brian Johnson. Although have not had the same level of dominance since he retired, they have produced some quality players like David Palmer, Brendan Dowd and Mike Demarest over the past few years.
Hauppauge
They have been very successful over the past few years. Beginning with Matt Reistetter and then Nick Fanti, they have produced two pro players in a brief period. They also had P.J. Contreras and Tyler Sanderson graduate in the last two years. Coach Gutes has done a great job at creating a winning atmosphere. They have a strong core of young players in place so they should maintain a high-level of play over the next few years at the least. They have become the team to beat in League V.
Hills East
They have been producing legit players for over a decade and the lineage looks to be continuing. It really began with John Mincone in 2007, continued with Adam Brown in ’09, Stephen Woods in ’13, Brandon Bonomo (’15) and now they have two of the top players currently on the island in Mike Palazzolo (’17) and Matt Hogan (’18). They also have a potential Div-I player in Joe Litchhult. Coach Belz has been fortunate to have some big-time players in his program and he has gotten them to the next level. Their 2015 might have been the most loaded, as they also had Matt Schwartz (Vassar), Rich Villa (Lafayette), Joey Marzouk (Hofstra).
Hills West
Coach Migliozzi gets rave reviews how he is able to get the best from his players–which makes them a no-brainer to be a part of this list as long as he is still there. This past year they had only one Div-I player in Bradley Camarda, but the previous year they had Jon Faraci, Aaron Glickstein, Nick Lombardi and Owen McMenamy. They are another team that churns out 13+ win seasons and five or six college players per year. They have had one player drafted and that was T.J. Pecoraro in 2010. I had the fortune of matching up against him in a 2009 postseason game at Centereach HS. I left with the score tied 3-3 in the eighth inning and they beat us 5-4 in 11 innings–a classic game.
Longwood
They have flown under the radar, but if you look at their track record over the past decade–it is pretty staggering. They have produced JJ Bessell, Dan Parisi, Andruw Gazzola, Kristopher Killackey, Sean Rausch and Troy Simpson–just to name a few, that have– either already or are soon will have–an impact at the college level. Playing in the competitive League I brings out the best in players and they have certainly benefited from that.
MacArthur
The Generals have been a powerhouse for decades. They won the Long Island Championship in 1987, 1989, 1990, 1995, 1996 (NYS), 1999, 2011 and 2015. They have been producing All-State, Conference MVPs and Div-I athletes for years. They have had five Diamond Award winners since 2008–Tyler Savin, Josh Barry, Jesse Tuozzo and Adam Heidenfelder (2x).
Massapequa
The Chiefs have pretty much been the equivalent of a baseball factory since their inception. Let’s just talk about their 2012 team for a moment. Here’s a list of their players and the colleges they wound up attending:
- Andrew Camarda-Baruch
- Mike Cardino-Old Westbury
- Alex Cosenza-Hofstra
- Nick Fanneron-Northeastern
- Eric Hassell-Adelphi
- Pat Healy-Cortland
- Bobby Honeyman-Stony Brook
- Nick Garland-Central Connecticut
- Tommy Macri-Adelphi
- Ryan McCormick-St. John’s (Colorado Rockies)
- Jonathon Mulford-Adelphi (St. Louis Cardinals)
- James Nakashian-St. Joseph’s
- Billy Schlich-Holy Cross
- Ryan Smith-Baruch
They won the Nassau County title the next two years. This past year they lost in the Nassau County finals to East Meadow, but it was a 19-win season for a team that routinely puts up those figures. That team had an All-State pitcher in Pat Clyne, two Stony Brook-commits in Brandon Fanizza and Chris Keenan and LIU Post-commit Luke O’Mahony. You can do much worse than recruiting from Massapequa.
Smithtown East/Smithtown West
I will include them together because the schools are so close together and they have both been winning tons of games and producing college players. West last one the Long Island in 1992 while East won in 1990, so either one of them is due for a breakthrough. They have both been knocking on the door for years. East has graduated some great players in the last two years–Patrick Lagravinese, Shawn Kelly, John Marti, Ryan Ingarozza, Dominic Savino as they have won 39 games over that time. West has won 37 games over the past two seasons while graduating playersa number of quality players like Brandon Lamanna, John Craft, Nick Grande–to name a few.
St. Dominic
Getting Kyle Young drafted is just the latest for the Bay Hawks. Every year, they produce multiple Div-I players. They also had Rob Galligan– a 2012 graduate–get drafted last year. Before that they had Kyle Hansen in 2009. Next up will most likely be Fordham junior Reiss Knehr, who is as polished of a side-arming pitcher as you will see at the college level. He was hitting 96 at the Hamptons League All-Star Game. They may also have 2013 grad John Larossa get drafted from Hartford this year. He had a number of scouts watch his bullpen yesterday in which he was sitting 91-93 MPH. They are well-represented on college teams across the island and along the east coast.
St. John the Baptist
During John Habyan’s tenure, they were arguably the premier team in the CHSAA. They won consecutive titles and produced players like Kevin Courtney, Brian Hunter and Joe Palumbo–the latter two both have been drafted. Habyan established a winning culture by instituting him experience as a Major League pitcher. They routinely sent seven or eight players from each team to play at the college level. They were highly-regarded for their pitching and defense over the years.
Pat-Med
Since the graduation of Marcus Stroman, every baseball fan has now heard of Pat-Med. But, it’s not fair just to judge the program based on one exceptional player. Not often is a player of that ilk going to come around. Oh wait, they also had another player drafted four years later! People tend to forget about Vogel’s level of dominance in high school because he is not in the big leagues yet but he has a chance to be in the near future. They consistently produce high-end players. From 2015’s playoff team they produced Matt Codispoti, Brett Malm, Rich Ciufo, Tristan Amone, Ronnie Linsalato and Andrew Garcia that are playing in college. Their 2008 rotation of Stroman, Chris Phelan and Mike Smith was one of the best in Long Island history.
Wantagh
They are the reigning Class A NYS Champs. They probably could’ve won some games against college teams last year. They had four All-State players and are returning three of them. They have had a good run of producing college players. They graduated Lou Doria, Shawn Klotsche, Gehrig Montoro in recent years who are current college players. Now that they are in the spotlight, their players will definitely not be getting overlooked. There have been two Diamond Award winners from their school since 1998–Greg Voegler in 2001 and Chris Smith in 1998.
Ward Melville
Steven Matz. Anthony Kay. That is enough of a reason to head down and catch a Ward Melville game if you’re in the business of identifying top players. They have produced dozens of other impact Div-I players in the past decade under Coach Petrucci. They also had A.J. Nunziato win the Yaz Award in 2007. They have Ben Brown and Max Nielsen right now as high-end players, but they just graduated Troy Daverne, Joe Barbieri, Nick Vitale and Joe Flynn in the past two years that went on to play in college. They win over 15 games every season and make a run in the postseason. They are one of the elite programs on the island.
West Islip
They have won two Long Island Championships in the past three years. They graduated a tremendous class in 2016 but that doesn’t really hinder their chances to compete. Coach Rush likes what he sees from the current freshman and sophomores, which includes a pitcher like Anthony Cinquemani, who will is a 6’5″ prototypical power pitcher that can be scary good in a year. They have Jake Guercio, Greg Tsouprakos, Kyle O’Neill and Joe Valentino who are all scholarship players. There will be no end in sight for their run.
