It was a year to be proud of for William Floyd, as they qualified for a postseason berth for the first time in eight years. They finished with a regular season record of 13-7, and won their first-round playoff game against rival Sachem East along the way for a total of 14 wins.
Head Coach Keith Kobasiuk, entering his third year as head coach, but 12th with the program, felt his players performed well last year but they face the challenge of replacing a big group of seniors.
They had eight seniors last year – seven were starters – and three were starting pitchers. Replacing all those innings could be an obstacle.
“We’re going to try to piece it together on the mound,” said Kobasiuk. Replacing All-League southpaw A.J. Verga will be difficult. They also graduated All-League Anthony Currao, who provided so many crucial innings for the Colonials last season.
Chris Homan rips an RBI single to get William Floyd on the board in the first pic.twitter.com/tebbdq0xal
— Axcess Baseball LI (@axcessbaseball) April 1, 2019
Moving to the rotation will be last year’s closer Anthony Basich. He led the team with four saves and was “our go-to guy in the late innings,” said Kobasiuk. They will also be transitioning Tommy Verga to the mound. The All-County SS is well-known for his impact on the field but not many know he pitched for his entire life until last season.
“He threw for us as a sophomore,” said Kobasiuk. “We were spoiled last year, we had an entire rotation of seniors plus some juniors to throw in relief so we didn’t really need him. We will take it slow with him but he can pitch – he has pitched – it will more out of necessity but he is certainly capable.” They will also be looking at Chris Homan to get them outs whether it be in the rotation or the back-end of the bullpen. Kobasiuk noted that they will be relying on some juniors to step up and answer the challenge to log quality innings.
Offensively, there is no question that Verga is the main thumper. He batted an incredible .466 last season. led the team with 3 HR, 22 RBI and scored 24 runs. He was named Preseason All-Long Island and wound up going All-County. He is also the QB of the football team that won the County Championship. He’s an elite athlete and they are hoping he can duplicate last year’s production and play a steady SS. He is committed to Farleigh Dickinson.
Senior outfielder Jon Robinson is a returning starter who should provide some offense for them as well as reliable defense.
They will have the challenge of replacing some impact bats from last year. Nick LoMonaco was so critical for them in the middle-of-the-order. He committed to play at Eastern Tennessee. Also, Vance Carlo was All-League and was in the middle of so many rallies for them.
This year’s team will have seven seniors. Kobasiuk says that the strength of their team will be in the defense, as “we have three solid outfielders. Also our infielders are very good. We will win games with our pitching and defense – which is the complete opposite of last year where we basically outscored everyone.
They have seven scrimmages set up before opening up league play against Pat-Med on March 30.
