Team Preview: Smith Post 24

Manager Tony Abone Sr., Coach Tony Abone Jr.

Losses: T.J. Abone, Marc Capponi, Joey Mazzaferro, Carl Tardugno.
Returning Players: Zack Ciccotti (C), Dustin Colgan (P/OF), Ryan Cooke (P/OF), Alex Kierpiec (P), Ryan Kramer (SS), Nate Mallinder (3B/OF), Ryan Marquette (P/1B), Jason Nowicki (IF), Kyle Richardson (P/OF), Josh Seaton (IF), Mike Stevens (P/2B), Matthew Wanner (C).
Newcomers: Tryouts in progress.

I just had a short conversation with Smith coach Tony Abone Jr. He said that tryouts for his team are in progress (started last night) and he expects the team to be selected by the beginning of next week. But, with a solid core of players returning from last year’s team, he still offered me some of his thoughts on the upcoming season. Check out what he had to say below:

AD: You have a lot of guys coming back from last year. What does that mean for your team?
TA: Coming off of the success of last year’s team, we have that nucleus coming back of Ryan Marquette, Jason Nowicki, Kyle Richardson, Ryan Kramer and Nate Mallinder as position players now with a year of experience under their belts, some of them with two years. With that in mind, we’re excited. We’re excited to get started. Having said that, a couple of our college guys didn’t play at school…They’re in good physical shape, but we need to get them in baseball shape.

AD: A lot of people think you’re the team to beat. What are you thoughts on that and who else do you see as being the contenders?
TA: At this point it’s very hard to predict that. Everything always looks good on paper…Coming off of last year, and with some of these teams, my thought would be Whitestown. They have some great pitching coming back. Adrean Post was a very young team. Coach Milazzo and Macchione, I think they’re going to do a great job there. And you can never count out New Hartford. John Randall and Jonesy (Greg Jones) always have those guys ready to play…Really though, I think it could be six, seven teams in the hunt. That’s what makes American Legion baseball so exciting around here…On paper it looks good, but so do the Yankees…You’ve got to execute, things have to fall your way.

AD: Can you tell me if Joe Melioris will be part of Smith and what that would mean to your team?
TA: Joe is a very good talent. Unless there is some character flaw or something like that, I would see him as being part of our team. He’s shown in high school that he’s one of the better pitchers around. We’re excited to have him blend with the returning players that we have and I know the returning players are very excited to have a player of his caliber join the team.

AD: Any other thoughts you want to share with me about the upcoming season?
TA: We’re excited to get started. I think the players, as a team, we may have overachieved a little bit last year. We kind of came together at the right time at the end of the year. We’ve just got to hope to carry that through. We can’t get complacent. I’m excited about having new players and a good mixture this year so we can do some good things and do some teaching. As coaches, you love bringing in new players and teaching them…We’ve got to get on the field and execute and make some good plays.