Hills West
Hills West Well-Positioned For Another Run at League 5 Title
With an elite Head Coach such as Tom Migliozzi, sometimes a team can catapult from playoff contender to League Champions. That is precisely what happened last year when Hills West took a team with two seniors and two freshmen and tied for the League 5 with Eastport-South Manor. Migliozzi, now in his 27th season at the helm, has 394 wins and 11 league titles to his name. He has the uncanny ability of maximizing the ability of players. Winning a league title with two starting freshmen is no small task. True to his personality, he was not willing to take credit for it. “A major part of our success last year came from senior Ethan McMenamy‘s ability to lead them,” said Migliozzi. “We were in search for a leader, he helped instill a good culture within the team,” h...
Up Next: Nick Farnacci
(Editor’s Note: This is the 10th profile of our Up Next Series which highlights the top middle school and JV kids on Long Island. We are approaching the end of the series. Once January 1 arrives, we will be full swing in terms of high school and college baseball season.) Plate coverage is a lot art. With the proliferation of the “three-true outcomes” (home run, strikeout, walk), players are foregoing the approach they learned in Little League in favor of what they see on the MLB Network. Besides the fact that very few youth players possess the type of power to hit the ball over the fence, it also is not conducive to a team-mentality. When a young player embraces the old-school approach of small-ball, it is a breath of fresh air. 14-year-old Nick Farnacci is an interesting...
Up Next: Ryan Muskopf
While working at the renowned New York Baseball Academy (NYBA) camp at Hofstra during the summer of 2016, I was in charge of working with Group 5 one week. This is for younger players, typically fifth or sixth grade. Most of the players have potential but are very raw and have plenty to work on. One player that caught my eye was young Ryan Muskopf. Then in fifth grade, he was easily one of the best players in the camp and was well beyond his years in terms of talent. The camp ends each summer in mid-August and it’s up to the players to continue to work on what they learn. In many cases, the players will really take that experience and grow from it. They will continue to develop and sometimes you end up hearing about these players later. Muskopf is that player. While conducting resear...
Mike Draskin: Why I Chose NYIT
(Editor’s Note: Mike is a 2019 graduate of Half Hollow Hills West HS in Dix Hills. He is a very talented C/3B that recently committed to NYIT following a strong season for the co-League 4 Champs. The following words are his own…) From the first time I had stepped foot on campus, met the coaching staff and heard the opportunities within the program, I knew it was a dream to play for the Bears at New York Institute of Technology. Over the summer, I had reached out to my high school coach for Half Hollow Hills West, Coach Tom Migliozzi, saying that I needed more connections with colleges that he was close to. I told him NYIT was somewhere I would love to play, especially because they has just hired Long Island baseball legend Frank Catalanotto. I met him when I was only ten years ...
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