On any given night, anyone can be anyone

Underdogs and Cinderella teams is what the season and playoffs are all about. It's nice when the favorite team in their respected sport wins but people thrive more on those George Mason or Davidson runs in the NCAA March Madness. How about the Tampa Bay Rays in 2008? No one saw them coming other than the Rays and their organization.

How about the Cardinals in the playoffs in 2009? And the Seahawks of 2010? Both were heavily criticized for being in the playoffs and receiving the home field advantage (Cardinals 8-8 and Seahawks 7-9)

They all proved the critics wrong. The Cardinals went all the way to the Super Bowl, falling 35 seconds short of holding the Lombardi Trophy. The Seahawks destroyed the defending Super Bowl Champs, the Saints. And the Rays went on to win the AL East Division and the ALCS to only fall short in the World Series against the Phillies.

This is all what Spackenkill's 2011 Baseball season was all about.

Having 3 starting freshmen (Ben Jenkins, Billy Winnis, Blake Kawalski) who not only play key rolls in the field but are also 3 out of the 4 starting pitchers for Spackenkill. This Spackenkill Baseball team is a young team with only 3 Starting Seniors (CF/Pitcher Quinn Horvath, RF Thomas Fleischman, and DH/3B Adam Wagner). They were not projected by the paper or anyone to win their division or their Section.

But we went on to do just that.

We won our Division, then participated in the MHAL Tournament (local team division winners tournament) to only lose to Saugerties (Class A School; Spackenkill is a B) in the MHAL Championship game.

Spackenkill was once ranked as high as 16th in the State (highest ranked team in section IX). They were then given the 3rd seed in the Section IX tournament (7 teams participated in it). I personally felt gypped when we were not giving the one seed because we were clearly the best team in the section. But it only gave us more motivation to prove the Section wrong.

The Times-Herald-Record, an Orange County Newspaper, gave Spackenkill no credit at all. In their "preview/prediction" they only talked about Burke, Burke, and Burke. They believed that Burke was going to win the Section hands down but to not sleep on number 6 seed Onteora because they have played mostly "Class A" Schools.


In the opening round of Sectionals, #3 Spackenkill defeated #6 Onteora 9-6 (Spackenkill 1, Times-Herald-Record 0). Then the very next day #3 Spackenkill defeated #2 O'Neal 10-6 in the Section Semi-Final putting the Spartans in the Section IX finals to face Burke.

Spackenkill started off hot by scoring 2 runs in the first inning in the Section IX Championship game. Spackenkill would end up falling behind 4-2 but not for long. They scored 9 straight unanswered runs. They would go on to win in a dominating fashion, 11-4 (Spackenkill 2, Times-Herald 0). Spackenkill showed Section IX why they should of been the #1 seed to begin with. We out-scored our opponents 30-16 in 3 games. But if I had the opportunity to change the seeding, I wouldn't. By not having the #1 seed, it took pressure off the team. By being under the radar, it gave us something to prove.

Spackenkill's run was stopped short when they fell to Section I champs, Briarcliff, 11-1. Briarcliff went on to the New York State Class B title game only losing to Chenango Valley 7-4. Congrats to Chenango Valley.

Spackenkill won their division and the Section IX title for the first time since 2006. With the young team they have, no one saw this coming.

On any given night, anyone can be anyone. ~ Dan Gable