Sachem East
Coming Off County Finals Appearance, Sachem East Hungry to Take Next Step
By Michael Malaszczyk Coach Kevin Schnupp is ready for the 2022 season, and while proud of his team’s 2021 season, isn’t going to settle for second best. Sachem East had a great year in 2021, coming off of a season cut short in 2020. They finished with a 16-4 overall record and came just short of glory against Commack in the Suffolk County Championship. “Obviously we were disappointed that we didn’t finish what one of our preseason goals was,” said Schnupp. “But all in all it was a great season and the boys performed really well in a tough league. We faced several top pitching prospects throughout the year. To look back on 2021 positively, Schnupp feels that what led his team to success last year was its blend of upperclassmen and rookies. Evan Fisher with his second HR of the game ...
Craig Pihlkar Fires Gem, Commack Defeats Schlesinger & Sachem East 5-3
Final: Commack 5, Sachem East 3 WP: Craig Pihlkar S: Jack Cascone pic.twitter.com/o2Q4uLSgXM — Axcess Baseball LI (@axcessbaseball) May 13, 2021 On a difficulty scale, it doesn’t get much tougher than winning a road game against a lefty flamethrower that’s a likely MLB Draft pick. But when it comes to being afraid or intimidated, that’s just simply not going to happen to Commack. The Cougars pulled off a wildly-impressive 5-3 win against Sachem East with Miami-commit Rafe Schlesinger on the bump throwing gas. Commack, who captured the 2017 County Championship in a similarly difficult match up at West Islip, had their own ace on the mound. With 6’5 RHP UCONN-commit Craig Pihlkar, they can play with anyone. The big righty earned the win, throwing 6 IP, allowing six hi...
Connetquot Starts off With a Bang and Recap of Opening Day for Section XI
I mean, you couldn’t have asked for anything more on Opening Day for Section XI baseball. Town of Brookhaven was generous enough to host the Coaches Memorial Opening Weekend which will feature tributes to Carmine Argenziano, Bill Batewell and Bob Ambrosini today – the three coaches who passed away over the previous year. That will take place today at Moriches. As far as the action on the field – it was thrilling and the energy from the dugouts and fans were absolutely electric. You could just feel the excitement and anger from all the emotions the past year. It was relieving to know we arrived at this point – even if many were frustrated with the route it took. In any event, I had a busy day. I drove to Kings Point to watch the Opening Round of the Skyline Conferenc...
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...
Suffolk County Leagues Not Yet Finalized
I was very surprised to hear that the Suffolk County leagues are not yet official, despite the chart being posted on Section XI’s website. Nassau County’s is posted and we are only a couple months away from the season at this point. So what’s the hold up? I was told that Riverhead’s status is the hold up. If you remember earlier in the school year, they were intending to eliminate sports for the 2020-21 year in order to save the district $960,000. They reversed course and reinstated sports. The issue was that Section XI had progressed to move on without them for this year and made the 2021 leagues. Now that they’re back, a decision will need to be made in regards to where to place them. Their enrollment would typically fall in either League 2 or 3. Once a deci...
Highlights of IG Live With Rafe Schlesinger
Rafe Schlesinger (Sachem East 2021) is a Miami-commit that is among the top pitchers in the region. He helped Sachem East to the postseason in 2019 as a sophomore and was slated to be their ace this season. Here’s what he had to say on last night’s IG Live… -He has been long-tossing weekly as well as throwing bullpen sessions. He likes to long-toss up to 100 yards on a football field to stretch it out because it’s tough to ease back on the effort. -Throws weekly bullpens with Neal Heaton, he has been going to him for several years and is comfortable with his style of coaching. -Developing a change up has been important because you can’t blow fastballs past every hitter so harness a good feel for it to progress in the game. -He feels that he struggles more agai...
OTD: Roman Dorosh, Dan Palermo Power Arrows Past Ward Melville
Our @DigmiNation Player of the Game is Dan Palermo who hit a leadoff HR in Sachem East’s 8-2 victory pic.twitter.com/vnDXcHOMm3 — Axcess Baseball LI (@axcessbaseball) May 18, 2018 When you play a team for the fifth time of the season, there are no surprises. The cream rises to the top on merit alone and Sachem East rose to the occasion from the first at bat–when center fielder and Iona-commit Dan Palermo launched a solo shot to left off Max Nielsen on their way to an 8-2 victory over Ward Melville. With the victory, the Arrows advance to face West Islip in the finals of Bracket #4. “We always like facing Ward Melville–they’re our biggest rival, we always get hyped for these kind of games and we love it,” said Palermo. They continued to tack on runs. Craig Leonard and Dylan Stalzer ad...
OTD: Pat-Med Wins Wild One Over Sachem East 12-8
(Editor’s Note: This article originally appeared on March 30, 2017.) If you like pitching duels this one was not for you. Pat-Med avoided a series sweep with a 12-8 win over Sachem East in a wild game that took over three hours and featured several lead changes. The story of the game was Albany-commit Brad Malm smacking a three-run HR in the first inning and also just narrowly missing another one in the sixth inning, that was ultimately a two-run double to put the Pat-Med Raiders up 6-4. “I felt like I was seeing the ball very well and my teammates and I put together a few great innings which helped, not only the pitchers but, the whole team,” said the senior SS. The game was far from over at that point, though. Sachem East bounced back and tied the game on a solo shot by Brendan Rya...
Sachem East Looks Dangerous Entering 2020
by Tony Genualdo Last season was a positive one for Sachem East. The league was very competitive, and they were able to qualify for a postseason berth. In fact, they entered the last week of the season with a chance to tie for a League title. They would eventually lose in their third game against Ward Melville. William Floyd was another team that Sachem East battled with all season long, including twice in the playoffs. The season would come to an end with a loss to the eventual county champions in Connetquot by the score of 8-4. Coach Kevin Schnupp says his team will be prepared for every game this season. “This year, we are continuing to build on our past successes looking to take the season one game at a time and to be prepared as possible,” said Schnupp. “We are very lucky to have kids...
Here’s My Thoughts on The 2019 Season So Far
We are about two weeks into the regular season for most teams at this point in Suffolk County, and one week for Nassau and the Catholic League. It goes quick–way too quick. It seems we wait forever for baseball season and then it’s over 6 weeks later. That means early season story lines that should be chalked up to ‘small-sample size’ and ‘too early to tell’ actually become the story lines the entire season. Here’s a stream of consciousness about what I’m seeing, what I’m hearing and what I am predicting… Nassau County Matt Yip. What more can the kid do? I remember watching him in the winter going into the 2018 season and thinking wow this kid has a nice swing I’m surprised he’s still under-the-radar. I knew of his bro...
Ty Acker Delivers Walk-Off Hit to Propel Sachem East to 6-5 Win in 10 Innings
Walk-off single by Tyler Acker and Sachem East wins 6-5 in 10 innings ! pic.twitter.com/Jd3BEX8H2x — Axcess Baseball LI (@axcessbaseball) April 1, 2019 In a game featuring several high-profile players, it was sophomore Ty Acker who was the difference. The back-and-forth affair that featured five lead changes went 10 innings ended on a bloop single by Acker to score catcher Ryan Micheli and send the team into a frenzy. The story line entering the game was the matchup between sophomore stud Rafe Schlesinger and Molloy-commit A.J. Verga, who was named to our Preseason All-Long Island list. Schlesinger was understandably nervous in the first couple innings pitching in front of a big crowd with three Division-I coaches holding radar guns behind the plate. Floyd capitalized right away on an RBI ...
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