By Lucas Milgrim
With the season beginning on March 20, Schreiber High School’s varsity baseball team is looking to defend its conference title and make another run at the Nassau County Championship, in which they fell to the Massapequa Chiefs. Last year was one of the most successful season in school history, where they went 20-6 and reached the County finals for the first time in many decades.
Head coach Matt Holzer, was honored as AA2 Coach of the Year for his first time, and he was quite deserving of it. Assistant coach Phillip Spotteck was also the assistant Coach of the Year. Alex Chang, who is now a freshman at Trinity College, was voted All-County, the unanimous Conference MVP and won the Diamond Award, given to the top pitcher in Nassau County. The team had one other All-County player and four All-Conference players.
This season, the Vikings are looking forward to what will be another successful season. Seniors Derek Livingston, Sean Meth and Jackson Sattinger each look to build off their All-Conference seasons last year by leading the team to another county championship. The team has been hard at work all winter, preparing for another great year. Coach Holzer believes he can lead the team to another successful year.
“We’re going to take it one day at a time,” Holzer said. “My goal is for us to get better as a team every time we take the field. I think if that’s our mindset this season we’ll be successful.”
Holzer also talked about the past seasons, and how this mentality has worked. He knows that if the entire team buys into it, they will continue to be successful.
“The last couple of years, our team has had solid leadership, an incredible work ethic and a great culture,” he said. “Everyone on the team got along and bought into the team first mentality. Our guys were willing to do whatever it took to get better. They were willing to sacrifice a little bit of their own success for the success of the team. The older guys through their leadership have done a great job of creating a family type atmosphere on the team. Our work ethic and team first culture really separates us from other teams.”
Another thing that separated the boys from the rest of the league was their success at home. Last season, the Vikings went undefeated on their home turf, and the fans played a big role in that. So come out and support your Vikings as they make another run at the Nassau County Championship.
Lucas Milgrim is a freshman at Schreiber High School. He currently writes for the Schreiber Times’ sports section. He enjoys watching, playing and writing about all sports, especially baseball.
