Jason Shulman, coach and manager
Mike Serota and Bob Ras, assistant coaches
Louis Eiler
John Eyerman
Chad Fuschillo
Zachary Goldstein
Frankie Leavey
Jordan Leopold
Alex Ras
Robert Rosen
Brandon Serota
Noah Shulman
Thomas Viverito
Photo credit: Courtesy Merrick-North Merrick Little League
Photo caption # 20589 : The Merrick-North Merrick Little League's elite 9- and 10-year-old baseball team recently won a state championship for the first time in more than 50 years.
They are the champions
Drophead: Merrick-North Merrick Little League takes first title in 50 years
By Scott Brinton
The Merrick-North Merrick Little League's elite baseball travel team was winning the recent state championship game against South Shore-Staten Island 1-0 heading into the fifth inning. One troublesome inning later, however, the squad was down 5-1, as it began the game's sixth and final inning.
Jason Shulman, of Merrick, the team's head coach, had a talk with his squad. "I told them this next at-bat will decide how great a team you will be -- if you want to be a good team that made it to the states or a great team that overcomes adversity. This was the first time we had to overcome adversity."
Indeed, it was. The squad breezed through the Long Island championships to get to states, which were held in Pittsford, just outside Rochester. In the double-elimination state tournament, the Merrick-North Merrick team beat Wapinger Falls, 11-0, and Buffalo, 12-2, to reach the championship game. Both preliminary games were called early -- in the fourth inning against Wapinger Falls and in the fifth against Buffalo -- owing to Little League's mercy rule.
In the final game, Merrick-North Merrick dug deep in its last at-bat. The team quickly regained its composure and started scoring runs. Eventually, Thomas Viverito, a left-handed slugger, smacked a double, giving Merrick-North Merrick a 7-5 lead.
Staten Island got the final at-bat, but Merrick-North Merrick held firm, not allowing a run. The championship was theirs, and after the final out, team members piled atop one another on the pitcher's mound as their mothers and fathers cheered. State Sen. Charles Fuschillo, of Merrick, whose son Chad played on the team, brought out the big state championship banner he had made before the game. He kept it in his car trunk. He didn't let any of the players see it until they won, fearing that if they did, the game would be jinxed.
Fuschillo said of the squad, "Their character was outstanding. Their sportsmanship was the best. They were very respectful of the opposing teams."
After the win, the team settled into its Rochester hotel and celebrated with a pizza party by the pool. The remarkable victory capped a summer of hard work. The squad practiced every day, no exceptions, for two to three hours. When it rained, there was batting practice at an indoor cage in Freeport.
Shulman, whose son Noah was on the team, said he and his assistant coaches, Mike Serota and Bob Ras, received tremendous parental support. "In order to win in this type of environment," he said, "you have to have a lot of cooperation. You have to be very clear with the parents how you're going to run the team, and then you have to have the cooperation from the parents to let you alone. That cooperation feeds to the children."
The players said that winning the championship -- Merrick-North Merrick's first state title in more than 50 years -- gave them an unbelievable feeling of accomplishment. Robert Rosen, 10, who attends Chatterton Elementary School, said, "It felt really good. In the championship game, I switch-hit, and I felt really good when I hit the game-tying single."
Viverito, 10, another Chatterton student, said, "I was proud our team was first. ... Our team worked together through it all."
And Louis Eiler, 10, who attends Sacred Heart in North Merrick, said that as victory neared in the final inning, he was thinking, "We can never give up. We're going to be confident to not give up. We're not going to let the other team score."
At press time, the Merrick Fire Department and Little League were organizing a parade to celebrate the squad's championship.
