See this story at BrooklynDaily.com.
By Joseph Staszewski
Brooklyn Daily
Nazareth coach Oggie Quiles had a poignant message for his young baseball team right before it took the field for its championship game — one the players need to carry with them moving forward.
“We’re not here by mistake,” Quiles said. “We’re here because we’re good.”
It was a reminder to his team, which only has two seniors, just how much it accomplished by earning the right to play Sacred Heart for the Catholic Class A title at St. John’s University last Sunday night.
The Kingsmen may have come up short in that contest, falling by a score of 3–0, but Narareth proved it more than belongs in its first year back in the Catholic league.
“Coming into the season, we were projected to not get as far as we’ve gotten,” said sophomore pitcher William Navarro. “We were projected to get kicked out of the first round of the playoffs.”
Instead, Navarro and his teammates proved just how good they are and can be. Rallying to beat defending champion Monsignor Scanlan 7–6 on a walk-off single by Benny Talavera in the loser’s bracket semifinals highlighted the season. Nazareth (10–6) tried to come back again against Sacred Heart starter David Hurley and his devastating curveball by getting the tying run to plate with two outs in the seventh inning, only to come up short. The Fighting Irish had 12 seniors who lost in last year’s final. Now Nazareth knows what they felt like.
“It feels horrible to make it so far and come so close,” Navarro said.
The expectations only get higher from here on out. Nazareth will come into next season as one of the favorites to win the city title. No one can overlook it again.
An emotional Quiles, whose sunglasses were pulled down for much of the post game activities, wants this team to remember the pain it felt on the field as Sacred Heart celebrated across from it.
“I said, ‘When we come back in and we are working and we get upset at the workout, I want you to remember how you feel now,’ ” he said. “ ‘You are working so we don’t feel that way again. Use it as your motivation.’ ”
More importantly, remember there is no mistaking that Nazareth has a chance to be a budding baseball program, because the players are focused on being better than just good moving forward.
“We are going to come out next year 10 times better,” said freshman leftfielder Shamariah McCullough. “We are going to come out stronger. We are going to take it next year, definitely.”