Vinny Alversa, who manages Hub44, the building on Tan Bark Trail that houses half a dozen hitting and pitching cages, and who coaches East Hampton High School’s varsity baseball team, said during the winter that he couldn’t wait until March.
There’s no more waiting: March is here, and during an open workout Sunday at East Hampton High’s baseball field, Alversa said something he hasn’t said in a decade at Bonac’s helm, to wit, that this year’s senior-heavy varsity team can win the league championship. If it didn’t, he said, he would be shocked.
The Bonackers made the playoffs in 2022 and 2023, but missed them last season, finishing at 7-8 in League V play and at 8-12 over all. The six seniors on the team subsequently graduated, but he’s got eight seniors this time around, namely Carter Dickinson, Hudson Meyer, whose father, Henry, has been at Alversa’s side for eight of the past 10 years, Tyler Hansen, Justin Prince, Hudson Beckman, Liam Cashin, Bruno Sessler, and Leandro Abreu.
The team is junior-heavy too, what with Trevor Meehan, Finn O’Rourke, Mason Miles, Livs Kuplins, and Victoreddy Diaz. The coaches are looking at “a couple of sophomores,” but may go with the upperclassmen solely.
Alversa and Meyer have been working hard to build a program, and it seems they have. Baseball is being played here the year round now. Sixty to 65 players on five age-group teams vied in the Brookhaven summer league and in tournaments in the fall, the coaching crew comprising Ray Wojtusiak and Scott Abran (13-U), Alversa (12-U and 10-U), Asa Gosman and Ben Gregor (11-U), and Hunter Eberhart and Tyler LaBorne (9-U). Wojtusiak will assist Andrew (A-Rod) Rodriguez in coaching the junior varsity this spring.
Yes, Alversa agreed, the program, whose upper levels owe much to the efforts of Meyer, Rodriguez, and Matt Shimkus, was up and going. The off-season Sunday workouts, at Hub44, or, weather permitting, on the varsity turf field, he added, have been “open to anyone, including high school kids who might want to give baseball a try.” The jayvee ought to do well, as well, Alversa said, given that “there is a strong freshman class, what with Aiden Stone, Luca Biondo, Miles Eckart, and Elias Wojtusiak, and good up-and-coming eighth graders like Scotty Abran, Colin Grisch, and Declan Balnis.” The varsity will spend spring vacation, from April 13 to 19, scrimmaging six teams from around the country at Baseball City (the former Tampa Bay Rays training center) in St. Petersburg, Fla.
Twenty-two of Alversa and Meyer’s charges, who have paid their way through fund-raisers that have included car washes, raffles, bingo nights, food sales at the Little League playoffs, and donations from family members, are to make the trip.
Suffice to say, given Alversa’s confidence, the varsity should be strong when it comes to pitching, hitting, and fielding. Dickinson, Meyer, Hansen, O’Rourke, and Meehan are expected to be strong starters on the mound.
East Hampton will play in League V (one of three AA-enrollment leagues in Suffolk County this season) with Hauppauge, Harborfields, Eastport-South Manor, Westhampton Beach, Comsewogue, and Half Hollow Hills West. Hauppauge is the defending league, county, and Long Island AA champion, not to mention that it was the state runner-up in 2024.
Last year, the Eagles routed the Bonackers in their first two matchups, but edged East Hampton 5-4 in their third meeting, a game that convinced Alversa and Meyer that their team could, in Alversa’s words, “play with the best.”
East Hampton will be put to the test “right out of the gate,” given that its league season is to begin on March 31 at home with Hauppauge.
