Special thanks to Metamorphosis Landscape Design for sponsoring this year’s series
by Max Edelman
In his sixth season with Garden City, head coach Dave Izzo guided his team into one of the most challenging conferences that Long Island has to offer. Izzo was able to take his team to a regular season conference championship before falling to Division in the playoffs.
“We played in arguably the toughest conference on Long Island in my opinion.” Izzo said. “With Division, Calhoun and Carey. We won the conference regular season, which was great. We went into the last three game series of the season against Division and whoever won the series was conference champs and we beat them two out of three. But we saw them in the quarterfinals of the playoffs and they smoked us.”
Garden City junior Evan Cabral broke the program’s single-season batting average record (.603) which was previously held by John Maloney (‘00) and James Cauchi (‘11) at .554. He was 41-for-68 on the season pic.twitter.com/5N2P6Pl6XK
— Axcess Baseball LI (@axcessbaseball) May 15, 2024
Unfortunately for the Trojans, 14 members of the 2024 team were graduating seniors. However, a testament to the talent development in Garden City, two are continuing playing baseball at the college level. Gabe Beschloss is playing at East Carolina University and Jack Fanning is playing at Hofstra University.
Although Garden City suffered a large loss of starters, they will be led by superstar senior Evan Cabral. Cabral was an All-County player last season and is committed to play at Stony Brook following the end of the 2025 season. Coming off a remarkable 2024 in which he hit .603, Izzo is excited to see what Cabral has in store in 2025
“He had a record setting year for us.” Izzo said. “We have a pretty good history here at Garden City and he broke our single season average record. He hit .603, which was crazy. He had an unbelievable season. He only DH’ed last year, we’re hoping that he can be back in the field, as well as on the mound this season. He had one of the best offensive seasons we’ve ever had here. In my opinion, he’s probably one of the top five offensive players on Long Island.”
Christopher Desiderio (Garden City 2026) now in to pitch for NL Brewers Sandlot. pic.twitter.com/fktqiLp0Vm
— Axcess Baseball LI (@axcessbaseball) June 28, 2024
Outside of Cabral, no current senior got more than 15 at-bats for the Trojans last year. However, there were a few underclassmen that were able to make strong impressions last season that are looking to carry that impact into 2025. They include Chris Desiderio, now a junior, who played first base, outfield and worked his way into the three man rotation for the Trojans last season. Also a junior in 2025 is Skylar Lang. Lang made a number of starts in the middle of the infield for Garden City, and will look to continue making an impact this season.
While there aren’t many returning players from the Garden City Varsity team, the Trojans are still a deep team. Last season, their JV program went undefeated. Izzo believes that his depth is an advantage, and he is excited to see what players end up breaking into the team this year.
“We have a lot of depth. Izzo said. “It’s unfortunate we can’t keep everyone and that we have to cut kids that would make a lot of teams but we just have a lot of numbers and depth so it’s a good problem to have.”
The Trojans will open their season on March 31 in a non-league game against Syosset.
