Thursday, October 1, 2026
It’s been an up-and-down season on the diamond for East Meadow, which dropped two straight to Valley Stream Central last week to fall back to the pack in the Nassau Class AA playoff hunt. Entering the final series of the regular season against Port Washington, no amount of number crunching could quickly determine the possible outcomes for the Jets in 2012.
Depending on how the final three games played out for a number of teams, the Jets (8-7-1 overall, 5-6 in Conference AA-II) could finish anywhere from second to out of the playoffs (the top four finishers in the conference qualify) that are scheduled to start this Saturday. And that made the bottom line simple: “We have to win some games,” coach Ken Sicoli said.
Few teams have had their mettle tested like East Meadow, which has routinely battled in games down right down to the final at bat. “We’ve had some games this year where we’ve played as well as anyone in the County,” Sicoli said. “All but two games have been one run or tied going into the last inning.”
One of those hard-fought battles was in the May 3 series finale against the Eagles, a 6-5 defeat. East Meadow held a 5-0 lead after three innings before Valley Stream Central chipped away with a pair of two-run innings in the fourth and sixth. The game-winning single in the bottom of the seventh followed a walk and a wild pitch. That loss came on the heels of an 11-7 defeat one day earlier. “All of the games were back and forth,” Sicoli said. “They made all the plays.”
Central pitcher Mike Marmol did not allow a baserunner until senior Robbie Healy walked in the fourth, but even a few walks and an error that plated three runs in the sixth weren’t enough to jump start the Jets. “He threw strikes and we hit nothing hard,” Sicoli said.
Senior Matt Castaneda, who has assumed the role of staff ace for the Jets in the wake of senior Ben Wright’s absence, looked every bit the part in the series opener with Central on May 1. He pitched all nine innings of the Jets 5-4 victory, striking out a career-high 17 and allowing just seven hits and three earned runs. An error allowed pinch runner Jack Ritter, a junior, to score the go-ahead run in the ninth. “He has an amazing strikeout to walk ratio,” Sicoli said of Castenda. “He throws in the low 80s and is a strikeout kid.”
Wright, who missed nearly three weeks of the season after winning his first three starts, was expected to return for the finale series with Port Washington, potentially giving East Meadow back its one-two punch at the top of the rotation. Like Castaneda, Wright can also pile up the strikeouts, notching a combined 22 punchouts in earlier starts against Hicksville (12 strikeouts) and Baldwin (10). “He’s a legit number one pitcher,” Sicoli said. “If we can get him back [that would be big].”
