by Vinny Messana
Losing the ace and the lead off guy in the order is never ideal for a team with playoff hopes, but that does not curtail the optimism of Plainview-JFK heading into 2016, according to third year Head Coach Jon Givargidze.
Michael O’Brien, now at Concordia, won five of their seven games last year. Leadoff man Jake Saltzman, now at Molloy, was an All-Conference outfielder. David Glass, another talented pitcher with a high 80s fastball, is now at Johns Hopkins University.
This year’s team, however, will be very senior-laden, with 12 graduates of 2016 hungry to go out with a bang.
They will be counting on last year’s leading HR hitter, Bryan Safer, to lead the offensive attack. Safer smacked five HRs as a junior and will be looking to build on that success this season. They are also returning All-League SS Brian Maloney, who led the team with a .410 AVG and 21 RBI.
The rotation will be leaning on sophomore Mark Faello to use his mid 80s fastball to lead the staff and be the horse.
No. 2 starter Tyler Marinaccio , a sophomore, will join Faello in their young but talented rotation.He was a member of the Body Armor Titans, a stacked team that won several tournaments last season.
“I think the speed of the game was a shock last year,” said Givargidze. “This year we have a lot more depth. I have seven or eight guys that I can use this year,” he added.
That type of depth is usually a huge benefit at this level of baseball.
“I think our top two guys can be aces,” he stated.
They will be looking to knock off East Meadow as the class of the conference. They won’t have to wait long to prove their worth, either. They open up against them at home on April 11.
They will be competing in a talented conference that also includes Hicksville, Herricks, Baldwin and Port Washington.
They are just two years removed from an 18-6 team that lost to Oceanside in the postseason. That team featured League MVP Domenic Palumbo, who is now at Farmingdale State, as well as Chris Tracz, who is now at Marist.
They will be looking to return to that level of success.