The beautiful thing about traveling around to indoor facilities in the winter is that it gives me a chance to see how kids have evolved since last season. Since the Long Island Championship last June, players had additional opportunities to improve their game over the summer and increase their strength over the winter. I feel like with all that being said, I have a pretty good feeling as to who the top players and teams are across Long Island. Today, we will focus on Suffolk Class AA, where many of the top players in our region reside. From a scouting perspective, I’m looking forward to see how those select few players answer the bell and attempt to be this year’s version of Franklin Parra and Logan O’Hoppe on draft day. From a journalistic standpoint, I’m excited to see which group of players is able to overcome all the inherent obstacles and capture the championship on Memorial Day weekend.
Without further ado, here’s how I see each of the four Class AA Leagues looking like: (Note: This year AA includes Leagues 1-4)
League I:
Champs-Longwood
This will be an extremely tight finish between Longwood, Ward Melville and Sachem East. As always, there will be a ton of firepower, parity and very little margin for error. While it may wind up that Sachem East possesses the favorite for the Carl Yastrzemski Award in Roman Dorosh and the top catcher in the northeast (Don Wille), I believe their varsity inexperience behind Dorosh will prove to be their only shortcoming. Ward Melville is always a 14-win team, but I believe the absence of Matt DiGennaro will prove costly. Max Nielsen is a bonafide No. 1 and I really like what I saw from Ethan Farino, Chris Vivenzio and Ryan Hynes so their pitching should be in good shape. Brady Doran is likely to be an All-County infielder again, following in the footsteps of his brother. Ultimately, the experience that Longwood gained last year, their starting staff of three Division-II arms (Dannenberg, Murphy, Gargano) and a lineup that is as good as any on the island with four terrific bats in succession (Matt Encizo, Jose Matos, Kyle Rausch, James Myler) will be too tough to overcome. People don’t realize that Encizo hit .449 last year and had a case for the Silver Slugger Award if not for McHugh’s incredible second-half power surge.
League II:
Champs-Connetquot
They will get their first test on Wednesday in a non-league game against St. Anthony’s ace Billy Fitzgerald. I think if last year was the appetizer, this is the entree for the T-Birds, who bring one of the most impressive rosters to the field in 2019. They have the early front-runner for the Paul Gibson Award, followed by two other pitchers that could easily be the ace on 90% of other teams. With the Yalon twins in the middle of the lineup as well, this promises to be a special year. They last won it all in 2015, and this team has many similarities. Commack is clearly their biggest competition, and they may as well split their season series, but I give the slight edge to Connetquot for the League Title.
League III:
Champs-Smithtown East
I really thought last year would be their year, but as it ends up, the baseball gods had other plans, as they were upset by No. 17 seed Bay Shore in the first round. They return virtually the same team, minus their closer. They have an elite pitching staff led by Binghamton-commit Doug Goodwin, Hofstra-commit Will Kennedy, Adelphi-commit Michael Storms as well as Jai Sharma, Mike Ciminiello and Nick Harvey. I think they will finish the regular season in the same fashion as last year–with a league title and 15 or 16 wins. They will have some other 10+ win teams in their league–likely Newfield, Smithtown West and maybe Hills East. The real challenge will be in the playoffs, though, where they will look to overcome the ghosts of May pasts. They have come excruciatingly close several times in recent years; none more frustrating than in 2016 when they had the tying run thrown out at the plate on a single by Jon Marti. They will have a great shot this year with that staff and a number of other college-bound players like Justin Harvey, Matty Tempone and some solid bats like Ryan Pennisi, Matt Werthheim and Logan Drucker.
League IV:
Champs-West Islip
It would be foolish to bet against the team that has finished as Class AA Champs three times since 2014 with the same coach and much of the same core in place as last year. Their pitching staff of Mike LaDonna, Bobby DiCapua, Anthony Cinquemani and Brad Battaglini is a force. They will be fine offensively, because there is likely someone on the roster that I haven’t heard of that will finish with a .400 AVG and be in the running for League MVP, as was the case last year with Anthony Ippolito. This is not to say North Babylon won’t win 12 or 13 games and make a playoff push, but it is likely that with their staff, West Islip will finish with 14 or 15 wins in the regular season once again and make a deep postseason run.
Class AA Champions:
Connetquot over West Islip
