2021 Season Previews
Chaminade Prepares for a Title Defense Season Unlike Any Other
The Chaminade Flyers are the 2019 NSCHSAA Champions with a 3-1 victory over St. Anthony’s pic.twitter.com/czHcPb827e — Axcess Baseball LI (@axcessbaseball) May 27, 2019 Mike Pienkos is entering his 39th season as Chaminade‘s head coach. He has won over 600 games and guided the Flyers to yet another NSCHSAA title in 2019 – the 16th in program history. This year will probably be his biggest challenge, though, as he will tell you. The program has been built up to the point where he knew there would be a tremendous pool of talent to select from on the first day of tryouts. In a normal year, that wouldn’t be the slightest issue as he would take the next three weeks to narrow down the roster and then use the scrimmages to find the right lineup and pitching staff. In a COV...
West Babylon Enters 2021 Counting on Maucere To Do Some Damage
by Ben Diamond Head coach of the West Babylon baseball team, Victor Manzella is in the same boat as other coaches going into this season. They lost a few players from his roster due to the pandemic canceling the 2020 season. Although, his senior class last year wasn’t as big as his senior class this year which is eleven players. Last year he lost players like second baseman Jack Rankin, who would have been an impact player on his roster. This year, Manzella has a few players on his roster that he expects to make an impact this season. His center fielder, Cole Maucere, who Manzella says will be the player that has the biggest impact on the team because not only will he patrol center field but he will also help out on the mound. He is a lefty with big pop in his bat, and a great outfield arm...
Led by Three Preseason All-Long Island Players, Westhampton Looks Impressive
Jack Halloran (Westhampton Beach 2021) with his fifth home run of the summer pic.twitter.com/qIYfNKEv1a — Axcess Baseball LI (@axcessbaseball) July 18, 2020 Westhampton Beach has established themselves as a strong football program in recent years and that’s no different this year as they face Sayville on Friday in the Conference III Championship. Their baseball team, though, will make some noise this season. They enter the 2021 season with three players that were named to Axcess Baseball’s Preseason All-Long Island team including a first-team and second-team member. Head Coach Asa Grunenwald, who took over the program in 2019, is looking forward to this season which kicks off in just over two weeks. They have the good fortune of having two dynamic bats in the middle of the orde...
Mike Herbst Hoping His Final Season Will Be One to Remember
Mike Herbst wants to go out with a bang. The longtime Bay Shore head coach notified his athletic director today that 2021 would be his final season at the helm. He has been with the program since 2005 and the head coach since 2010. He stated that this is a special group and this is the one he wants to go out with. Last season had the makings of a deep postseason run as well. Their seniors included OF Ryan Brewer (Johns Hopkins), 6’4 Jayden Colon who opted to go into the military and LHP Ryan Smerechniak (Ithaca). Brewer hit .429 with 20 RBI, 12 runs scored and .571 OBP in 2019 and was set to bat in the middle of the order. All three of those players were difference makers and Herbst feels that they would’ve been a really special group. They wound up playing in the Boys of Summe...
Garden City Ready To Avenge Quick Exit in ’19
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 F...
Comsewogue Ready To Go To Battle With Strong Pitching Rotation
In the middle of the decade, Comsewogue was led by a terrific pitching staff that led them to back-to-back League Titles in 2015 & ’16. Since that time, they have been looking to regain the right mix. Heading into 2021, they appear to have one of the top pitching staffs in the league, which should allow Joe Caltigerone’s squad to be in every game. Adelphi-commit Jacob Pedersen (Comsewogue 2021) pic.twitter.com/6XawLO1vxZ — Axcess Baseball LI (@axcessbaseball) February 7, 2020 Anchoring the staff is Adelphi-commit Jacob Pedersen. He is a fourth-year varsity player, having started twice as a freshman. As a sophomore, coach noted if the team scored some more runs for him, he likely would’ve been All-League. That has been their missing ingredient in recent years as they t...
Manhasset Enters 2021 With a Great Problem to Have
Four games per week. Seven innings each game. Many teams all over Long Island are struggling with piecing together that many innings from their pitching staffs that are young and/or inexperienced. Manhasset is one of the few teams that enter 2021 with the opposite problem. Head Coach Mark Giardino stated they have seven pitchers that have great stuff and that they’re confident in to get outs. “To be honest, with the staff we have, we will determine our pitching rotation game-to-game,” said Giardino. “The first week we are going to try to get as many guys on the mound as possible,” he added. They will open up against Glen Cove, before a bye week leads them into a showdown against Division. Jake Moss (Manhasset 2022) up to 90 MPH with an average FB velocity of 8...
Hicksville Returns Three Talented Players
Uncommitted Will Stewart (Hicksville 2021) pic.twitter.com/SSMahgR1yO — Axcess Baseball LI (@axcessbaseball) September 9, 2020 If you’re going to have a young team built around three experienced players, a good place to start is at the top of the rotation and SS. Hicksville will be pretty inexperienced bunch after graduating 11 players in 2020 but they do have that working for them. Among the players that graduated – Anthony Pandolfi, Nick Kozerski, Jason Labrador and Sean Baker are playing at the collegiate level. Anchoring the rotation is Stony Brook-commit JC Kiss. The big lefty is the team captain and leader. He committed to Stony Brook last summer and coach Frank Ciaramitaro stated that he has “electric stuff.” JC Kiss (Hicksville 2021) up to 86 MPH at PBR NY S...
Syosset Returns One Varsity Player But Plenty of Talent
Syosset was one of the many team on Long Island that were really impacted by the cancellation of the high school season. They had 12 seniors and a number of younger players that were quality players and there was plenty of reason for optimism around the program. “We were really excited last year – it was a really good group,” said Head Coach Tom Morritt who took over the program in 2019. That year’s team lost in the playoffs to the eventual Long Island Champion Massapequa Chiefs. They graduated All-County RHP Cameron Mayer from that team who is now a starting pitcher at Tufts. Of the 12 seniors in 2020, three went on to play college ball including PJ Daniels and David & Peter Saferstein. In regards to those seniors, “It was really tough to see their seaso...
Bellport Takes The Field With Heavy Hearts in 2021
There hasn’t been many coaches as successful as Bill Batewell and the list of people that are as respected as him is even shorter. The legendary coached passed away in January. He won over 500 game during his storied career and led Sachem to County Titles in 1979 and 1987. Over 20 of his former players went on to become head coaches. His longtime assistant, Joe Murphy, is now the head coach of Bellport, the position Batewell held since 2008. Murphy noted that when Sachem chose to go in another direction in 2005, Batewell wasn’t ready to give up coaching and decided to take over the Bellport program since he lived in the area and wanted to take on the challenge of turning around a program that had one six games in four years. “Out of all the great coaches, there’s ve...
Coming Off Three Titles in the Last Decade – West Islip Returning Entirely New Team
Final: West Islip 5, North Babylon 4 (13 Innings) WP: Brad Battaglini (5 IP, 1 R) Mike LaDonna: Wall-off sac fly pic.twitter.com/ogXGg6gd4Q — Axcess Baseball LI (@axcessbaseball) April 24, 2019 Over the course of his tenure, Shawn Rush has established West Islip as the model of consistency in terms of Suffolk County baseball programs. Since 2008, they have captured four Suffolk County Championships and two Long Island Championships. They won Suffolk Class AA Championships in 2014, 2016 and 2018. They were looking to continue their “even year” trend last year and appeared to have a decent shot at it with a starting rotation consisting of three college-bound seniors – Bobby DiCapua (Bentley), Brad Battaglini (Cortland) and Brian Lundie (Farmingdale). That alone would’...
Roslyn Will Look To Outsmart and Outplay their Competition
by Ben Diamond Just like every other coach, Roslyn head baseball coach Dan Freeman lost many seniors after the cancelled 2020 season. Players like catcher Andy Simon who Freeman felt was becoming a commander on the field, and Jordan Bernstein, one of the team’s captains who was a three-year varsity player, among other players like left fielder Ryan Rabinowitz, and utility infielder Brad Basel were big losses according to Freeman because of their impact on the team. “We had a good crew of seniors that were really hungry,” Freeman said. “We amped up the offseason workouts and they showed up, at every single one of them.” This year, Freeman’s squad showcases the school’s valedictorian Jordan Zucker, and salutatorian Danny Rosman. Zucker is a five-year starter in center field and on the...
