In 2019, Garden City entered the postseason flying high as the No. 1 seed with a 14-1 record and the best player in the county playing SS and batting leadoff. Two games later, their season was over in two shocking upsets against South Side and Plainedge.
“I’ve had to live with that taste in my mouth for the past two years,” said head coach Dave Izzo, who took over in 2017. “We didn’t play poorly we just got beat both games,” he added. The scores were 2-0 and 5-3.
Tommy Reifler went onto capture the Diamond Award for his outstanding play and has since gone to SUNY Binghamton where he is raking to the tune of .350/.426/.450 triple slash line as a redshirt freshman in the America East conference. Additionally, 2018 graduate Mike Handal is leading the 20-0 Fairfield Stags offensively with a .395/.410/.579. Having two recent alumni thriving at the Division-I level is nothing to scoff at. From last year’s team, Kyle Flynn went onto play at Vassar College.
As for the 2021 season, they have plenty of talent, albeit younger and/or inexperienced. Only catcher Joe Infante was at the varsity level in 2019 and he didn’t receive much playing time but coach Izzo believes he is a middle of the order bat in this year’s lineup.
Frank Santeramo (Garden City 2021) sitting 82 T84 with a 75 MPH change pic.twitter.com/P1w2jjrQ7k
— Axcess Baseball LI (@axcessbaseball) October 24, 2020
On the mound, they have five pitchers competing for the three rotation spots. The seniors are SUNY Maritime-commit Frank Santeramo, AIC-commit Matt Mohen, Gettysburg-commit Joe Frandina, Aidan Magnotta and junior Pat Heber.
During the second-to-last week of the regular season, there will be a four-game series so they’ll need an extra starting pitcher that week.
Izzo noted that they have three juniors that were slated to make the team last season so they will be expecting some degree of production from them and that includes 1B Pat Heber, SS Joe Wood and OF Francesco Ingrassia.
One aspect complicating matters for their preparation is the success of the football team. For those unfamiliar, Garden City is the premier football program on Long Island and has made 18 appearances out of the 28 Long Island Championships. They are, of course, in the semifinals this week against Sewanhaka and if they win, they will be in the County Championship (no LIC scheduled for this year). If that’s the case, there would be a 10-day overlap in the football and baseball seasons and it would prevent Garden City’s three baseball players from being ready – since they will need an additionally 6 practices to be eligible for baseball. The issue is specific to Nassau County since there will be no overlap for the Suffolk schools and it will impact the eight schools that compete for the County Championship.
In any event, GC will open up their regular season against New Hyde Park, and Izzo noted it will be fun to go up against St. John’s-commit Luke Orbon and their talented team. They will also face Herricks, MacArthur, Mepham, Calhoun, East Meadow, Great Neck South and Long Beach.
