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Garden City Returns 15 Players from 18-Win Team

by Max Edelman

Special thanks to Metamorphosis Landscape Design for sponsoring this year’s season preview series

Running into the eventual league champions never ends well, and for the Garden City Trojans, that was their fate. Head coach Dave Izzo, who is entering his eighth year as Trojans head coach, led his team to an 18-7 overall record (15-3 league) as well as a semifinal appearance in the playoffs. However, that was the end of the road for Garden City, as they were defeated by Division in the semifinals. Izzo looked back on what he believed was a great season with an unfortunate ending.

“It went well.” Izzo said. “We lost to the eventual county champions. We were 15-3 in the league, which was tied for first in the league. This year we’re in the toughest conference in the county, in my opinion. Which I think will help us prepare better for playoffs then we were last year.”

Of the 20 members of the Trojans varsity roster last year, only five graduated. Of the five, two are continuing their baseball careers at the college level. Matt Tusiani-Eng is now playing at Utica College. And Derek Santeramo is now playing at SUNY Maritime. 

Because there were only five seniors, that means that 15 of Garden City’s 20 players last year are returners, many of them played big roles last year and will look to build on those seasons in 2024. 

Of the returners, three were All-County players in 2023. Gabe Beschloss, a senior East Carolina commit, is a left-handed pitcher for Garden City. Beschloss has been on varsity all three of his previous high school years.

“He’s committed to East Carolina.” Izzo said. “Which is a top division I program. He’s a hard throwing lefty. We have very high hopes for him this year. He’s had a lot of success.”

Also playing in his fourth and final varsity season is All-County shortstop and Hofstra commit Jack Fanning. Izzo spoke on what having Fanning and Beschloss meant to him as a coach.

“Gabe and Jack both contributed a lot to the Long Island Championship team in 2021.” Izzo said. “That was their freshman year.” He expects both to be in the mix for the Diamond Award.

The final All-County returner is junior Evan Cabral, who will hit in the middle of the order for the Trojans this season. Garden City also has a returning All-Conference player. Danny Psaki. Izzo believes that Psaki could have likely been All-County if he had played more earlier in the season.

“He had All-County numbers last year.” Izzo said. “But he didn’t win that job until the second series of the year. But he played a very good center field for us. He hit over .400 last year and we’re expecting very good things from him this year.”

Although not All-Conference or All-County, the Trojans have several players who are returning for their third and final seasons on varsity. They are Matt Liberopoulos, Braden Soutar, Brady Karol, and Josh Cohen. Izzo also pointed at Xander Palmer as a key piece on the mound, touting him as one of his team’s top relievers last season and someone who could compete to be in the rotation this season. Although Garden City is loaded with returners, none of the spots are locked in.

“Even though we have 15 returning guys, every year is a new year.” Izzo said. “We expect guys to compete. Nothings set in stone, guys gotta win their jobs every year. Nothing gets handed to them.”

Izzo believes that his team’s strength this season lies in their plethora of pitchers.

“This year we have a lot of pitchers that we’re excited about.” Izzo said. “We’re looking forward to watching these guys compete in tryouts. And this is the first year since before COVID that we’re going to have two full weeks of scrimmages and non-leagues before our league games. We’re going to have a few weeks after tryouts where we can see guys battle both on the mound and in the lineup.”

Garden City will open its non-league schedule on April. 1, against Wantagh and their first league game will be on April. 8 against Calhoun.

 

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Vinny is the President of Axcess Baseball. He is a 2013 graduate of Adelphi University and he is currently the Long Island area scout for the San Diego Padres

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