Chaminade
Reasons To Be Excited For 2021
Last year at this time, everyone was full steam aheads towards another baseball season. We had no idea what was going on literally on the other side of the world. I don’t read the Wall Street Journal enough to know what’s going on in China so I had every reason to believe we would be on the verge of a normal year. I’m sure I was not the only one that was blind-sided by the cancellation of the 2020 high school and collegiate baseball season. It was awful news for everyone involved. We had already posted 65 high school season previews, hosted two college showcases and began covering college games over the course of the first two weeks of the year when the plug was pulled. Fortunately, we did have a semblance of a season in the form of summer and fall baseball. Everyone owes...
Nick Ungania Commits to SUNY Binghamton
Nick Ungania (Chaminade 2022) pic.twitter.com/91vb7zALKH — Axcess Baseball LI (@axcessbaseball) September 3, 2020 When the news was released last year that a Long Island-native gifted SUNY Binghamton baseball with a $60 million donation – the largest in university history – it had a few tangible effects. Besides bringing some additional credibility to northeast baseball, it also immediately became a destination for high-end players. Getting recruited by Binghamton had gotten a little more competitive. The school is already ranked No. 88 in the U.S and now they are about to have arguably the second best baseball complex in the nation. Justin Rosner is a 2020 Farmingdale graduate that is currently at Binghamton, and he will be getting joined by another Long Islander in the fall o...
Who Was The Best Team of The 2010s?
When it comes to being considered the best–the bar is set high. Over the course of the past 10 seasons, there have been undefeated seasons, there have been back-to-back state champs, there have been pitching staffs loaded with Division-I talent and pro pitchers. But there can only be one team considered the best. I have watched a lot of baseball, but I didn’t trust my own instinct so I solicited the help of some trusted sources to put together my definitive list of the best teams of the decade. To make it a bit easier, we narrowed it down to teams that have won a Long Island Championship, because plenty of talented teams have made it to the finish line only to come up short. We also did not list any school more than once on purpose because many of the back-to-back champions featured the sa...
OTD: Chaminade Captures 2019 NSCHSAA Championship
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 As soon as tryouts started, Logan Koester knew this team would be special. Scratch that, since the end of last season he knew. The George Washington-commit that mowed through the entire Catholic League, put an exclamation point on an outstanding season with 7.2 innings in the Championship Game against St. Anthony’s which enabled the Flyers to capture their 17th NSCHSAA Title and first since 2015. Early on, it appeared that this game would have a different outcome, though. In the bottom of the fourth inning, Marco Ali started the inning off with a double to left field. After a lineout to Sawyer Duarte for the first out...
OTD: Bobby Dahl Pitches Chaminade Within One Game of Title
Aidan Larkin broke the game open with a two-run single in Chaminade’s 6-4 victory over St. Anthony’s. He’s our @BsbLifestyle101 Player of the Game pic.twitter.com/5U9A8TTeMG — Axcess Baseball LI (@axcessbaseball) May 26, 2019 No. 1 seed Chaminade held off a seventh inning rally by No. 5 St. Anthony’s to win 6-4 and put themselves one win away from capturing the 2019 NSCHSAA Championship. Having not played since Wednesday, the Flyers were tasked with holding down a red-hot Friars offense that put up 20 runs in the previous 2 games. The Friars took an early 2-0 lead on an RBI single by Jack Calla and an RBI double by Cameron Leary in the bottom of the second inning, but senior RHP Bobby Dahl settled in after that. The Flyers offense answered right back in the bottom of the ...
OTD: Mike Pienkos Notches Career Win No. 600
Mike Pienkos discusses his 600th career victory pic.twitter.com/ENhFXi5hvD — Axcess Baseball LI (@axcessbaseball) May 21, 2019 Chaminade Head Coach Mike Pienkos entered elite company with his 600th career victory on Monday night. The No. 1 seed Flyers weathered a seventh inning rally over No. 6 Holy Trinity with a 6-2 victory. Starting pitcher Bobby Dahl went the complete game, he brought a two-hit shutout into the seventh before he ran into a bit of trouble but recorded the final out on a soft line drive to Aidan Larkin at short. Nick Hagstrom got the start for the Titans. They were coming off an upset win over No. 3 St. Dominic last Wednesday night. Hagstrom worked around a two-out single by Larkin in the first inning to put up a zero, but the high-powered lineup of the Flyers could not ...
Things I Miss About the Baseball Season
It’s only been less than a month but somehow it feels much longer given how the carpet was ripped from beneath. With the weather warming up, it’s offering glimpses of what we are accustomed to recognize as ‘baseball season’. Honestly, the weather in 2020 was just about perfect. We haven’t been hit with any snowstorms and the temperatures have rarely been below 40 degrees since February 1. We’ve been hit pretty hard with bad spring weather every year since 2013 – and we can always count on one significant downfall of snow. In any event, I’m still missing my usual routine during the baseball season. Since the inception of Axcess Baseball, and Baseball on the Island before that, I’ve been used to heading out to a college game at 3 pm in Ma...
Chaminade Prepared To Defend Their Crown
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 During his 38 years as the skipper of Chaminade, Mike Pientkos has won over 600 games and has garnered the respect of the Long Island baseball community. He led the Flyers to another championship in 2019, as they defeated St. Anthony’s in the NSCHSAA Championship in two games. With a team featuring seven seniors in the starting lineup and two in the rotation, he knew it was going to be a special year. “Yeah I knew we had some pitchers – such as [Logan] Koester – who dominated all year and [Aidan] Larkin, who was a third-year SS for us,” said Pientkos. “But we also had some good surp...
Brooklyn/Queens Schools To Join NSCHSAA
In a move that has been in the makings for over two decades, Brooklyn/Queens schools will be added to the Nassau-Suffolk Catholic League–effective spring 2020. This is big news, as it adds more parity to a league that was already very balanced. Rather than three-game series, there will be two-game series for the Long Island schools and one-game against the Brooklyn/Queens schools. This will not include the playoffs–the existing format will remain, but their hope is to build towards an intersectional or state tournament like public schools do. Below is the letter that was sent out by Ralph Dalton, President of NSCHSAA. Since the inception of the current format, here are the championships by school: Chaminade – 16 St. John the Baptist – 12 Holy Trinity – 6 Kelle...
Q & A With Logan Koester
Logan Koester, a 2019 graduate of Chaminade HS, was drafted by the Philadelphia Phillies in the 32nd round of the 2019 draft. Just two weeks ago, he was leading the Flyers to their 17th NSCHSAA Championship at Hofstra University over St. Anthony’s. Logan is a hard-throwing right-handed pitcher that was named Pitcher of the Year and also hit four HR–which was tied for the conference lead. Here’s what he had to say… Can you describe day three of the MLB Draft–how nervous were you what the past couple days have been like? Day 3 was a nerve wracking day. Before day 3 it seemed almost impossible and it wasn’t really a reality. but after i heard my name get called it felt so surreal and the joy was overwhelming. 2019 has been an outstanding year for you. Are you sur...
Chaminade Captures 2019 NSCHSAA Championship
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 As soon as tryouts started, Logan Koester knew this team would be special. Scratch that, since the end of last season he knew. The George Washington-commit that mowed through the entire Catholic League, put an exclamation point on an outstanding season with 7.2 innings in the Championship Game against St. Anthony’s which enabled the Flyers to capture their 17th NSCHSAA Title and first since 2015. Early on, it appeared that this game would have a different outcome, though. In the bottom of the fourth inning, Marco Ali started the inning off with a double to left field. After a lineout to Sawyer Duarte for the fir...
