2021 Season Previews
William Floyd Looking For Players to Step Up in 2021
On the gridiron, William Floyd sets the standard for football excellence in Suffolk County. So it would be unfair to expect one school to have two elite-level programs. On the diamond, the Colonials success comes in waves as talented graduating classes will ebb & flow depending on the year. 2019 was a particularly strong graduating class as they comprised seven of the eight positions on the field and all three rotation spots. LHP AJ Verga and RHP Anthony Currao were both All-League pitchers and were responsible for a bulk of the team’s wins. Last year, they were attempting to fill those innings by shifting All-County SS Tommy Verga to the mound and transitioning closer Anthony Basich to the rotation. With the cancelation of 2020, they lost Verga, Basich, Johnny Robinson and Chris...
Huntington Is Ready to Make Noise
One of the sure signs of a team having a breakout year is when they have many third-year varsity players that received playing team as sophomores and juniors. An even better sign is when they have fourth-year varsity players that received playing time for three years. The best sign is when they lost a bunch of one-run games the previous year as a young, inexperienced team. Huntington checks off all those boxes and for that reason, I think they will shock a lot of people and be a legitimate contender in 2021. They were going to be very good last year as well. After going 2-18 in 2018, they went 9-11 in 2019 and lost six one-run games – including a 2-1 loss to West Islip on the last game of the season which could’ve clinched a playoff berth. They are littered with talent. Look no...
Bethpage Appears Ready To Contend for a Title
by Ben Diamond Bethpage head coach Rob Fisher has a lot of talent on his roster this coming season. This is after losing many of his top players to graduation after the cancelled last season. Players like pitcher and first baseman Lucas Seely, who Fisher stated would have been their number one starter last season had it been played, and shortstop Brian O’Boyle who plays at LIU this year, would have been their three hitter in the lineup. Other big losses include infielder and outfielder combo player Alex Purchick, and middle infielder Chris McGuggart. But even with these losses, Fisher still has a very talented team headlined by Adelphi-commit Phil D’Aguanno and Cortland-commit Pat Dalton who are both expected to be top starters for them as well as key hitters in the lineup. “I think you’re...
Calhoun Led by 8 Seniors Heading Into 2021
Last summer, the Boys of Summer hosted a Nassau Varsity Division which featured several of the top high schools. Plainedge wound up winning the title, but they were taken to the absolute edge by Calhoun in an extra inning game in the championship. Plainedge was a senior-laden team playing with many of their 2020 graduates. Calhoun was a younger team that featured only three 2020 graduates on their roster. This bodes well for Calhoun entering 2021, as they will return the vast majority of that team. Head Coach Art Canestro, who has been at the helm since 2014, will enter the season with a team led by College of Charleston-commit Patrick Sanchez. He was named second-team Preseason All-Long Island, and has really impressed our coach since his sophomore season when he started. “From his ...
Sachem East Ready To Get off the Races
by Chris Sacchi After a 2019 that saw Sachem East lose to the eventual champion Connetquot, head coach Kevin Schnupp and company were looking forward to a big 2020 season. Instead, just like many coaches across the country, Schnupp is hoping the impact of his 2020 seniors can still be felt, even though they never played their final high school games. “We had a lot of really talented kids that laid the foundation for this group this year,” Schnupp said. “Don Wille, one of our catchers, he went off to Monroe, you have Ryan Micheli, who went off to Stony Brook, another catcher. You have Max Weinstein playing at Mount St. Vincent’s, and you have a lot of other guys that were returning starters. We had 12 seniors on that team.” Despite losing them for the season, Schnupp was able to coach...
Mount Sinai Leaning on Young Arms
by Ben Diamond Mount Sinai head coach Erik Reichenbach, like most other coaches, finds it difficult to have any expectations for this coming season, with his players having been unable to play on a high school field in over a year. Reichenbach knows this year’s group is young, with a lot of juniors and sophomores, who he hasn’t seen play since they were freshman and eighth graders. He does coach a handful of his players over the summer so he knows that they have been putting in work, but other than the handful of players, he doesn’t know the work the rest of the team has put in. “It’s hard to have expectations when you have a group of kids that haven’t played on a high school baseball field in a year.” Reichenbach said. “Most of my team is returning, but majority are young juniors an...
Valley Stream North Enters 2021 Led By Talented Junior Class
When we wrote the 2020 season preview of Valley Stream North in January 2020, the world was a very different place, but they were also one of the teams on Long Island that was entering the season with a lot of uncertainty due to their youth. From their 2019 playoff team that was in the playoffs with a 14-9 record, they graduated every starting pitcher and position player. Coach Phil Sanfilippo noted last year that his team was going to be very young and inexperienced. So in that sense, they were not impacted as much as other teams. “Had we played last year, we would’ve been one of – if not the- youngest team in the county,” said Sanfilippo. They were expecting to have just three seniors and five juniors on the roster. They would’ve had maybe six sophomores sta...
Southampton Ready to Begin New Era Under Zach Epley
Final: Southampton 9, Babylon 8 Here’s the go-ahead home run by Andrew Smith (3-for-3, 2 HR) pic.twitter.com/4oyXqgo5sK — Axcess Baseball LI (@axcessbaseball) July 12, 2020 Zach Epley was set to begin his varsity head coaching career with Southampton last year before the shutdown. There will be the added challenge this season of facing a step up in competition as their league consists of Shoreham-Wading River, Center Moriches and Mount Sinai. Regardless, pitching and defense has always been the recipe to success in baseball and Epley in confident in theirs. “I think we really have a good 1-2 punch atop the rotation with Ethan Walker and Steven Kraszewski,” said Epley. Those two were slated to be in the rotation last year along with LHP Sam Schneider, who graduated in 2020...
Even After Graduating Impactful Class in 2020, Harborfields Still Appears Prime for Playoff Run
Entering 2020, Harborfields was in as good of shape as any team in Class A. They were loaded with top-tier talent at key positions including a loaded pitching staff. After three straight seasons of first-round postseason exits, they appeared like a safe bet to change that. The cancellation of the high school season did not do them any favors, especially graduating catcher Anthony Madigan, RHP Jack Greco and LHP Corey Phelan. The latter is now a professional pitcher in the Philadelphia Phillies system after signing in August. The signing did not just catch me by surprise, but his own head coach. “It took me by surprise as well, in a good sense,” said Casey Sturm. “He came so far in just a few years since he got to us in high school. He looked great going into last season b...
Kings Park Led By Talented Pitching Staff
AJ Petraitis (Kings Park 2022) pic.twitter.com/jcHtKCoRqS — Axcess Baseball LI (@axcessbaseball) April 3, 2020 It took a year but Andrew Abreu will soon coach his first game as Head Coach for Kings Park. The former All-Region 2B at Dowling is excited to get going and is leaning on a talented, young pitching staff that has a lot of promise. “We have a lot of quality arms,” said Abreu. “That’s our strength which we think is critical this year. We have five guys battling it out for rotation spots. With the possibility of playing four games per week, it’s going to be a little more tricky this year,” he added in regarding to navigating through 28 innings per week. @CoachSorgie | part of my pen from 1/24/21 pic.twitter.com/e20zH66r81 — aidan colagrande (@Aidan...
Rocky Point Leaning on Deep Pitching Staff, Two Div-I Prospects
Walk-off single by Kyle Callahan and Rocky Point defeats Shoreham-Wading River, 4-3, in 10 innings ! pic.twitter.com/520eBR5wGZ — Axcess Baseball LI (@axcessbaseball) May 23, 2019 Rocky Point won the first County Championship in program history in 2018, and came very close to winning another in 2019 with a new Head Coach and only 13 players on the roster. That’s a testament to the culture that former coach Andrew Aschettino instilled, but also the caliber of coach that Anthony Anzalone is. Anzalone, who was an outstanding hitter in his own right at Rocky Point and Adelphi University, will guide a team in 2021 that has a ton of promise. While they graduated a big senior class in 2019 – headlined by League MVP Mike Gunning – they only had two seniors graduate in 2020, neith...
Plainedge Coming Off Boys of Summer County Title, Leaning on Two Four-Year Players
by Ben Diamond After having high expectations going into the cancelled 2020 season, Plainedge head coach Colin Fratrik has a new look roster going into this season. Fratrik’s squad lost 14 seniors after the cancellation of last year’s season including Anthony Labita who now plays at Pace, Zach Zarra who now plays at North Greenville University, and Mike Schock who plays for Farmingdale State. These departures among the other departed seniors left a pretty big hole to fill for his players this coming season. They did get to experience some semblance of a season during the Boys of Summer Varsity Division in which they captured the Nassau County Division Championship. Zach Zarra with the 2 run homer it’s a 2-0 Plainedge lead over Merrick in the top of the first inning pic.twitter.com/d...
