Connetquot is the 2019 Suffolk AA Champs ! They will face Massapequa in the Long Island Championship on Saturday pic.twitter.com/DVn38w3IzF
— Axcess Baseball LI (@axcessbaseball) June 4, 2019
Entering the 2019 season – his first as head coach – Robert Burger knew he had a talented team with sky-high expectations.
“The challenge for the coaching staff was how are we going to keep these guys grounded? After that Commack series, we kind of got on a roll. We set up small goals for ourselves – win the league, get a high playoff seed and get our pitching staff ready, which was the strength of the team. I’m extremely proud of how well they handled adversity,” said Burger.
As we know, they defeated Ward Melville in a classic three-game series to capture the Suffolk County Class AA Championship for the first time since 2015.
“One guy stayed with us through it all and that was you,” Burger joked. They ultimately lost to Massapequa in a thrilling Long Island Championship game, 7-6 at St. Joseph’s College in which the bases were loaded with a 3-0 count in the bottom of the seventh inning.
Despite the ending to the season, it was massive success for the T-Birds. Along with the team success, a number of players took home postseason accolades. They had three All-County players (Joey Savino, Josh McGee and Matt Goodis). Savino, now at Elon University, was the recipient of the Paul Gibson Award. He went 8-1 with a minuscule 0.73 ERA, 0.56 WHIP as well as 79 strikeouts over 57 innings. Josh McGee, who flew under-the-radar much of the season wound up batting a robust .481 with 3 HR and 32 RBI. Goodis, who came out of nowhere to become co-aces with Savino, went 7-1 with a torn labrum. Another impressive accolade was Playoff MVP which was awarded to Matt Brown-Eiring, who was absolutely lights-out on the mound winning the clinching games in the semifinals and finals.
Overall, they graduated 12 seniors including the Yalon twins who are both at Stony Brook University. Derek has started four games already through the first two weekends of the season.
Despite the large class, they are well-positioned entering 2020. They have two elite caliber players in Albany-commit Alex Ungar and Stony Brook-commit Matt Brown-Eiring. Both have generated interest from professional teams. They will provide punch in the middle of the lineup but also will be in the rotation. Hitting back-to-back in the order poses a threat to opposing teams.
The strength of the team will be the lineup, according to Burger.
“It will be one of the top lineups in the league,” he said. James Goff, who started every game at second base as a sophomore and batted .323 is now a junior and Burger said “he bulked up which is a good thing.”
They have some fresh blood coming in after the large senior class graduated, too.
Matt Tringali, who recently committed to St. John Fisher, will likely be the starting first baseman. He is a senior and they will be counting on him to provide production in the lineup. Senior infielder Anthony Amato will see plenty of playing time, as will junior Ryan Appell, a 6’3 power-hitting DH/1B. Behind the plate, they are counting on senior Dominican-commit Mike Barbara, who batted .323 and provided some big hits in the postseason while filling in.
The pitching staff will feature Ungar and Brown-Eiring but also junior Sean Miletti. He is coming off a season in which he dominated JV to the tune of a 7-1 record. Burger noted his only loss came in a game in which he didn’t allow an unearned run. He described him as “crafty” but also hard-throwing.
“He doesn’t have the low arm slot , he’s a little more over-the-top, but he’s this year’s Goodis,” he said.
Two other pitchers that will get innings are Anthony and James Trink, who are both pitchers committed to SUNY New Paltz. One is a lefty, one is a righty.
Lastly, they are unusually loaded at the 9th grade level. Burger noted they will have five freshman up on varsity and four of them could challenge for starting spots. Two of the pitchers are already in the low 80s.
“As you know, this league is stacked,” said Burger, coming off a league title. They will open up their season on March 30 at Commack, the first of a three-game set which should be a great battle.
So the question now that they handled adversity is; how can they handle prosperity?
