Commack baseball
What is the Best High School to Recruit From?
One of the realities of being a college recruiting coordinator is that there’s only a finite amount of time to recruit. Sure, there’s an 18-game regular season but they can only make it to high school games when they don’t have their own games! The thing that I’ve noticed since I have followed the Long Island baseball community is that certain schools have produced impact college players that a much higher rate than other programs. Obviously, there are external factors that give certain schools advantages such as the socio-economics of the city, the average income of the parents, demographics, the quality of the school’s head coach/athletic director. There’s about 20 schools that have ran laps around the rest of the island in terms of producing talent. If you ...
Ed Blankmeyer Reflects on Successful 2017
Even by the lofty standards of St. John’s skipper Ed Blankmeyer–758 wins and four Big East tournament crowns–there is much to be excited about when reflecting on the 2017 season of his Red Storm. They burst out of the gate red-hot with their best start since the days of MLB legend John Franco and Frank Viola in 1980. They began the season with nine consecutive wins and were nationally ranked by every major publication from the jump. They wound up with a record of 42-13 and had their dreams cut short in the NCAA Regionals against Vanderbilt and UNC Greensboro. The legendary Head Coach spoke to Vinny Messana and here’s what he had to say… It was an unbelievable season for you. What made this group so special? Well, it came down to getting off to a good start. It...
Commack-Native Steven Morse Committed to Turning SUNY Ulster Around
(Photo Credit: SUNY Ulster) One of the aspects of baseball that makes it great is that it’s the ultimate form of meritocracy. It doesn’t matter where you were born, who your parents are or where you’ve been. That’s why there are players from all over the globe in the MLB and front offices are filled with individuals from their late 20s to mid 80s. The one common denominator is that those who are in positions of power, are the ones that were the most resilient and refused to let rejection deter them. Commack-grad Steven Morse is one of those grinders, and that’s a huge reason he was offered the Head Coaching job of SUNY Ulster at the age of 25. He was tasked with turning around a program and there is every reason to believe he is on the right path. He spoke wit...
PODCAST: Special Guests Gregg Sarra and Lou Petrucci
In this week’s podcast we have a great show with special guests Gregg Sarra of Newsday and Ward Melville HC Lou Petrucci as we discussed the best teams in Class AA history. The re-classification in 2003 introduced Class AA, but prior to that all large schools were in Class A. Gregg shares the stories of the 2006 Massapequa State champs (29-0), 2010 Lindenhurst that nearly went undefeated and 1998 Longwood team that qualified for a playoff berth on an unprecedented rule and wound up winning a title. Lou goes in depth about his 2013 Long Island Championship team at Ward Melville. We also made our predictions for the 2018 winner. Enjoy!
Recap of WWBA Underclass World Championship
This weekend I was in Fort Myers for the immensely-popular WWBA Underclass World Championship. There were five Long Island-based teams competing; Motus Academy, MVP Beast, Body Armor Titans, Next Level Baseball and the East Coast Lumberjacks. Here are some of my biggest takeaways from the weekend. With 202 teams in the tournament and college coaches from everywhere–including Power 5 conferences, this is a must-attend event. The facilities of the Boston Red Sox and Minnesota Twins are absolutely gorgeous. If you love baseball as I do, it really reminded me of why I fell in love with the game. With no Major League game being played, I was able to walk around the ballpark and it made me appreciate the rudimentary aspects of the game such as that feeling when you walk through the rotunda...
MVP Beast Cruises Past Premier Baseball 8-0
Final: MVP Beast 8, Premier Baseball 0 (5-inning mercy) WP: Jake Krzemienski Ristano: 3-for-3, 2 RBI pic.twitter.com/YR8LpE6hIP Axcess Baseball (@axcessbaseball) October 5, 2017 It is not uncommon for Long Island teams to struggle in national tournament against elite teams, especially in a tournament such as Perfect Game‘s WWBA Underclass World Championship. Someone forgot to tell MVP Beast that, as they mercied Premier Baseball, a team from Texas, by the score of 8-0 in five innings. Head Coach Pete Kritikos was not surprised one bit by his team’s performance. “The guys that have been with us since they were 11-years-old just know what to do,” said Kritikos. “And to be honest with you, we’ve been there before. Whether we’ve won or lost, we&...
Who Are the Top Uncommitted 2018s Remaining?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PM6KEX5XWiY&t=1s With the Blue Chip Prospect 18U tournament taking place this weekend at Baseball Heaven, now is a great time to go over who the top available players in the 2018 class. Surprisingly, there are several high-end players still on the table. A number of them have scholarship offers currently on the table, but are waiting to make their decision. Here’s our top 25, organized by position in alphabetical order Catchers: Anthony Carleo (North Shore) Dylan Judd (Oceanside) Anthony Lamar (Freeport) Josh Lester (Copiague) Andrew Primm (Massapequa) Charles Rainone (Deer Park) Nick Ungar (Connetquot) Pitchers: Justin Aviles, Brentwood Jacob Cheshire (Sayville) Drake Eggleston (Ward Melville) Anthony Jacabacci (Bellport) Joe Litchhult (Hills East...
Hermes Abreu Speaks Softly and Lets His Play Do the Talking
With Commack garnering much of the attention in League 2 in 2017, it was easy to let some of the other outstanding performances go underappreciated. Bay Shore, one year after recording the most victories in Suffolk County, compiled a record of 14-8 and won a playoff game over Kings Park before getting eliminated by Hauppauge. Their biggest impact player was League 2 MVP Hermes Abreu, who was also named first-team All State. He is one of the rare two-way players that plays primarily behind the plate. He had numbers that jumped right off the stat sheet; he hit over .500 with 4 HR, 35 RBI and went 7-0 with 3 saves on the mound. You could argue he would’ve won the Yaz Award had Brian Morrell not dominated as well. He is currently at Concordia College, where he will begin his collegiate c...
Podcast: Charles Galiano Discusses Playing Career, Life After Baseball
In this week’s podcast, host Vinny Messana speaks with former Commack and Fordham star catcher, Charles Galiano. Twice drafted (2012, ’15), the Commack native had a very respectable career and played two minor league seasons with the Milwaukee Brewers before a shoulder injury derailed his career prematurely. Now he is preparing for life after baseball and discusses his plans to stay involved in the Long Island baseball community.
Home Run Derby Field Set
The highly-anticipated Axcess Baseball Home Run Derby will take place on Saturday, September 9 at the New York Institute of Technology (NYIT) in Westbury. It will include 12 of the best high school power-hitters on Long Island beginning at 2 pm. The two captains will be Anthony Fontana (Wantagh ’18) and Tim McHugh (Commack ’19). The players they will fill their teams with will be Johnny Castagnozzi (Massapequa ’20), Logan O’Hoppe (St. John the Baptist ’18), Anthony Carleo (North Shore ’18), James Myler (Longwood ’20), Jarred Vanderhoof (Longwood ’18), David Falco (Center Moriches ’19), Nick DeMicco (Plainedge ’18), Will Feil (Wheatley ’18), Peter Zielinski (MacArthur ’18) and Charlie Rainone (Deer Park ’18). The ...
LI Road Warriors Overcome Six-Run Deficit To Take Game One of the HCBL Championship Series, 11-8
Folgers gets it done for LI!! A grand slam in the ninth!!! Road Warriors lead, 11-8, with 2 outs now. pic.twitter.com/WMYvoEH1fT aXcess Baseball (@axcessbaseball) July 31, 2017 The Road Warriors showed up to Aviator Field hungry for a win. The game was started with a first pitch lead off homer for Nick Grande (Smithtown West ’16, Stony Brook). The middle infielder would have himself a monster day at the plate leaving the park twice with two dingers. He finished his day 3-for-5 with two HR and four RBI; his third hit of the day started the Road Warriors ninth inning rally. I think our lineup had a great day overall top to bottom, said Stony Brook sophomore Grande. The goal was to come out here and set the tone, we fell behind but showed a lot of resiliency wh...
James Cardinale Commits to Hofstra
One of the top class of 2018 players on Long Island is now off the board with James Cardinale (Commack) committing to Hofstra University. They also received verbal commitment today from Ryan Paul Rue of Pennsylvania–a highly-regarded player. Hofstra did a great job identifying the top players in the class and they now have inked Cardinale in addition to Mark Faello (Plainview JFK) and Anthony D’Onofrio (Wantagh) I had the opportunity to speak with Cardinale and here’s what he had to say… Can you talk a little about the recruitment process and how the Hofstra commitment came to be? Ever since I was little I’ve always wanted to play baseball at a high-level and stay in the northeast area. I’ve always wanted to prove that northeast baseball can be just as g...
