The last few years I knew in advance who was going to win. Robbie Aviles was so good last year that despite the great season by his teammate Jimmy Brennan he was a shoo-in. Same thing the year before that when Sean Giblin pitched Pearl River into the sectional final.

No Rockland teams even made a sectional final this year so there were few postseason heroes. Some guys had great regular seaosn numbers but had enough hiccups to put their candidacy in question.

At season’s end it was still very much up in the air. I studied the numbers and looked back at some big games and started to lean slightly in one direction. But I figured I’d see what the coaches thought before I made a call. If they strongly favored someone else I could be convinced. It turned out they liked the same guy I did. Problem solved.

Now it’s your chance to tell me what you think. I’m going to give you the list of four players who were my finalists. Make the call, and tell me why. Then place your vote in the poll to the right.

Robbie Aviles, Suffern, 1B/P

Jimmy Brennan, Suffern, CF/P

Dan Diaz, Nanuet, SS/P

Vinny Martorelli, North Rockland, C

Robbie Aviles, Suffern
Dan Diaz, Nanuet
Phil Martino, North Rockland
Kevin Rocco, Nanuet
Frank Rosario, North Rockland
Mike Scarinci, Pearl River
John Tricario, Clarkstown South

Which of the following guys deserves to be first-team all-county?

Jim Brennan, Suffern
Brendan Durkin, Suffern
Bryan Greig, Clarkstown South
Neil Guerriero, Nanuet
Ryan Kraemer, Tappan Zee
Bobby Siciliano, North Rockland
Ryan Sullivan, Albertus Magnus
Mike Velasquez, Albertus Magnus

Greg Bratone, Pelham
Matt deSilva, Hen Hud
Nick Modico, Kennedy
Taylor Mondshein, Mamaroneck
Dan Sorine, Eastchester
Mike Swerdloff, Ardsley
Eric Windsor, Mamaroneck
Dylan Marshall, Ardsley
Bobby Siciliano, North Rockland
Luke Devlin, Bronxville

Honorable mention
Timothy Orr, Briarcliff
Ryan Sullivan, Albertus Magnus
Andrew Nickoletos, Eastchester
Daniel Gillet, Briarcliff
Ian Lindsay, New Rochelle
Anthony D’Angelo, New Rochelle

In the meantime you can start speculating about who is going to be on those teams. We’ll start with Rockland, since that’s my area of expertise. Josh can address Westchester/Putnam when he gets back from his break.

Let’s open the process with the infield. Four infielders make the first-team All-County. They qualify if they spent a majority of time at any infield position. Except catcher. Catcher gets its own slot. There can be multiple players at a single position (i.e. two shortstops). It’s all about who played the best combination of offense and defense.

Here are the candidates for first team.

Vincent Crotty, SS, Suffern
John Garcia, 3B, Tappan Zee
Anthony Gokey, 2B, North Rockland
Bobby Holmsen, 3B, Pearl River
J.D. Karol, 2B, Nanuet
Dean Lothrop, SS, Nyack
Nick Mart, 2B, Pearl River
Frank Salerno, SS, Clarkstown South
James Wrenn, 1B, Nanuet

Of those, which four deserve first-team consideration? Is there one or two that you think should definitely make the squad?

Friday, June 19
7pm – state semifinal: Mamaroneck v. Massapequa
Approx 10 p.m. – state championship: Mamaroneck v. Clarence
(Games will air back to back.  Check LMC-TV website: www.lmc-tv.org, for exact times beginning Thursday, June 18 at 5pm)

Saturday, June 20
12Noon – 6pm – State semifinal and final back to back.
6pm – 12Midnight – State semifinal and final back to back.

Sunday, June 20
12Noon – 6pm – State semifinal and final back to back.
6pm – 12Midnight – State semifinal and final back to back.

Monday, June 21
1pm – 7pm – State semifinal and final back to back.

LMC-TV, as part of its Community Sports Program, sent the sports program crew of Rob Moretti, Andrew Rio and Seth Rothman to Binghamton, NY to cover the state baseball championships.

Further upcoming games to be televised by LMC-TV include Rye Neck softball quarterfinals against Irvington and Mamaroneck baseball Section 1 championship against Arlington.

The festivities will start at 4 p.m. at the intersection of Palmer Avenue and Larchmont Avenue, come down Larchmont Avenue, and will end with a reception in front of Village Hall.

The Tigers won their second straight Class AA state championship on Saturday when they beat Clarence 12-2 at NYSEG Stadium in Binghamton. That followed an emotional 4-3, 11-inning win over Massapequa in a semifinal.

The Tigers, coached by Mike Chiapparelli and featuring 17 seniors, became the first Westchester County program to repeat since Ardsley won four straight Class C titles from 1986-89.

Mamaroneck finished its season at 23-4-1.

“Last year was awesome. It was the first time and that was an unbelievable feeling,” senior Eric Windsor said Saturday. “I think this time was better. Senior year and we just ended on the best note we could possibly end on.”

There was one guy in particular, the lefty cleanup hitter Mike Mascari, who just scared the stuffing out of you every time he came to the plate. The way he crouched his bulk over the plate and then exploded his swing reminded me of Big Papi Ortiz. He had a homer, but so did Mike DeCarr, also nasty, and Ryan Malley. Interestingly all three went to the same spot in right-center. Makes you wonder if there’s a jet stream there a la Yankee Stadium.

Sean LaFaye was put in the impossible position of slowing those guys down. Sure, he didn’t have his best stuff. He missed on a couple of pitches and Westhill fired them into the outfield. He was also feeling the effects of pitching 24 innings in 13 days. (By way of comparison, during the regular season he threw 45.1 innings in 60 days.) He was starting the championship on two days rest after closing the morning semifinal.

The point is not to make excuses. The point I’m making is that all those things I mentioned don’t matter. It didn’t matter if he was rested. It didn’t matter that Westhill had five lefties to face him. It didn’t matter if his command was a little better. It didn’t matter that Tim Gardner didn’t play. It didn’t matter that Sam Connett might have been unfairly ruled out in the seventh inning. Westhill was too good.

As disappointed as they were I think Dobbs realized that. Certainly Huffman did, and said as much, but he’s always a stright shooter. But I bet even the players had that idea in the back of their minds. They’d come as far as they could and ran into a better team and that’s that. Few of them hung their heads. A couple were even laughing. They were not devastated.

After all, they almost didn’t make it to the final. It took a fluky Baltimore chop by Gardner in the sixth inning to score the winning run in a 10-9 win. Maybe it’s just because I was standing next to third base, but I can’t recall ever seeing a ball bounce that high in high school baseball. It sailed clear over the third baseman and by the time it fell to the shortstop Gardner was safe at first. This was minutes after Beekmantown hit a three-run homer to straightaway center to tie a wacky game 9-9.

Gardner later got hurt sliding into third. He appeared to be in a lot of pain. Two people had to help him off the field. During afternoon warmups he tried to jog but immediately felt the leg seize up and knew he couldn’t go. I felt bad that he wasn’t able to play the last game of his varsity career.

In the end Dobbs did not bring home its first championship trophy since 2003. There is still plenty to be proud of. Few expected the Eagles to be here. Kennedy, the defending state champion, was a prohibitive favorite in Class B. Dobbs had just recently moved up from Class C. Although their record, 24-3, was excellent, it was seen as a product of playing in Conference 4.

Turns out they were darn good. They beat Nanuet, a very good team. They shocked Kennedy. LaFaye and Avalos shut down Pine Plains and Southampton in the regionals. And they eked past Beekmantown to make a final game. Gardner played the hero, Coburn swung a mean stick, shortstop Chris Bucci made some awesome plays, and the two pitchers became household names.

Six starters—Bucci, LaFaye, Gardner, Greg Steinfeld, Coburn, Ryan Riefenhauser—graduate. Ten will go in all. Next year’s leaders will include Avalos, James Nieman, and David Muoser.

I just got back home to Astoria at 1:30 a.m. and have to be up early tomorrow for the Subway Series game. So it’s bedtime for me. I’ll be back tomorrow evening with a post-mortem on Dobbs’s surprising finals run and a season wrap up.

Stay tuned.