by Zevan Shuster
Coming off an extremely successful season last year, North Babylon baseball coach Steve Corrado knows his team will have to reinvent itself if they are to be successful on this upcoming campaign.
“We lost a lost of experience last year. We had a good team last year. We were 17-5, and we had a school record 11-game winning streak at one point. What came with that is we had three senior pitchers at the top of the rotation who threw 134 out of 161 innings,” Corrado said. “We think we have some talented kids, but we have kids that are going to have to prove themselves on the varsity level this year, especially on the mound, which is not always easy to do at this level.”
While their success was obvious last year, Corrado knows it won’t come as easy this time around. However, he does have guys who he knows he’s going to have to rely on if his team is to have a successful year.
“Like I said, we feel like we have some kids that can take over. The first one is Nick Picataggio. He’s a third year varsity player for us. Last year he broke the starting lineup and batted .300 during the regular season, but over the last two years, he’s been our fourth starter, and our first kid in relief,” said Corrado.
Touting his player’s credentials, Corrado went on to say, “In 31 innings over the last two years, he’s 4-0 with 2 saves, and he has not walked a batter in any of the 31 innings, which is pretty amazing. He has incredible control, he has 14 strikeouts, he has a WHIP (walks and hits per innings pitched) of 0.90 for his first two year,” said the head coach. “So we’re really looking for him to help us out on the mound and anchor our rotation.”
Elsewhere, Corrado and his team will be welcoming in a transfer from Lindenhurst, named Colin Rhein. Rhein was already on the varsity team at Lindenhurst, and actually started against North Babylon in the playoffs.
“From what I could tell, he had two wins and two saves… he took a no-hitter into the seventh inning during the last week of the season last year to help Lindenhurst clinch a playoff spot. And ironically, Lindenhurst is the team that eliminated us from the playoffs,” said Corrado.
In that game, Rhein threw a complete game shutout, allowing just two hits in the process.
Perhaps even more impressive was his mindset at the time; after the game, he told Axcess Sports that he wasn’t even aware that he had a no hitter going. Instead, his focus was to “Get the last out and get us one win away from the playoffs.” That competitive, team first attitude is exactly what Corrado and his coaching staff and team are looking for.
Colin Rhein took a no-hitter into the 7th inning with 2 outs before a bloop single by Charles Hardwick ended it. He still finished with a 2-hit shutout to get Lindenhurst within 1 win of the postseason. He’s our @BsbLifestyle101 Player of the Game pic.twitter.com/s0PfgjzHWI
— Axcess Baseball LI (@axcessbaseball) May 14, 2019
“Colin comes in with some tremendous experience, and him and Nick are going to be the anchors of our rotation,” said the skipper.
Elsewhere there is more uncertainty, but the head coach feels confident that the competition that lies ahead will bring out the best in his guys, both individually, and as a team.
“We have a couple of other guys who are going to fight it out to help us round out the staff. One is Robert Wagner, who is also a third year varsity player. He’s a middle infielder, and he’s pitched for us, but last year, he didn’t really pitch a lot because he had some arm issues,” said a hopeful Corrado. “We’re looking for him to bounce back strong.”
North Babylon will also being relying on last year JV players, first and foremost being Kevin Caroline, who was 5-1 with a 2.42 ERA last year, and who batted .475 as well.
Corrado said point blank, “We are looking for him to contribute on the mound as well. Those are really the top guys that we’re looking at right now.”
While his confidence is apparent, North Babylon’s head man knows his team lacks one thing heading into this upcoming season: experience.
“Experience is huge, especially in this game, and we’re gonna need to do a good job of preparing we don’t have as much experience as what we’ve had the last two years. We had the same pitching staff, really, for three years going into last season, so that’s really the biggest difference,” said Corrado.
On offense, however, it’s a different story.
“Offensively, we have guys who have been around for a couple years with us who know what it takes to win.”
One of them is Christian Fils-Aime, a three year varsity starter who’s committed to NYIT. Over his first two years, Fils-Aime has batted .336, with a .428 on base percentage.
“He’s an athlete man,” said Corrado of his player. “He just last weekend won the Suffolk County Championship for the 55 meter sprint. He ran that in 6.64 seconds.”
Leading off last year, Fils-Aime stole 17 bases and scored 21 runs, was an All-League selection last year, and as his coach puts it, is “the guy that makes our offense go.” With a lot of young, inexperienced players, Corrado feels more than confident that he can consistently rely on his star leadoff man, and he’s going to have to.
“We expect him to do it again.”
Ross Tallarico, a 4 year varsity starter, is expected to be another key contributor for Corrado’s team. A veteran presence in the lineup, Tallarico “really came on” offensively last year, according to his head coach, and was also named to an All-League Team. Tallarico is an outstanding athlete, as he is also an All-County starting quarterback for his school’s football team.
Both Fils-Aime and Tallarico provide tremendous experience at perhaps two of the three most important positions on the field, which is especially critical given the nine seniors North Babylon lost coming off of last year. If Corrado and his team are to be successful on offense, these two guys will almost certainly need to help lead the way.
However, coach Corrado’s confidence extends beyond just his key players, and extends to the potential he sees in the remainder of his team.
“One of the things we know we have is we have a lot of kids that can play a lot of different positions, and we have athletes. It’s our job to prepare them to play baseball,” he said.
If that preparation works the way Corrado hopes it will, North Babylon could very well be playing late into June.
