By:Chris Munzing
Thirteen girls from Long Beach, Lido Beach and Point Lookout make up the team, which is managed by Les Shamis and coached by Scott Halfon and Gerard Passaro. The Junior League, which is open to ages 13 to 14, is part of Little League baseball.
The team, which experiences some roster change as the age divisions change, has been together for the most part since they were seven and eight years old, according to Halfon. "We've brought these girls up pretty much since t-ball," he said. "And they've always been competitive.
This year was the culmination of a journey for a team that has come close many times before, but never took the state championship. "The closest we came was two years ago," Passaro said. "We were only one game away."
To get to the top, Long Beach had to go through the best that Nassau County, Long Island, and the state had to offer. The team's most satisfying local victory came against Islip in Suffolk County. "It was the first time we had ever beaten Islip," Halfon said. "We had to come a long way to get to where we were."
Long Beach's journey to the top was all the more impressive because of the limited pool of girls to choose a team from. "Compared to other towns and municipalities that have 100,000 people, we have a pretty limited pool," Halfon said.
After defeating all local competitors, Long Beach traveled to Fort Tilden in Breezy Point, Brooklyn for the state tournament. Wins over Pearl River and Fredonia gave Long Beach the title of best in the state.
Their victory pushed them into the Eastern Regional, where the faced teams from up and down the East Coast. The girls finished 3-2 in their division, and missed qualifying for the next round by only one game. "Had we gone 4-1, we would've gone on," Halfon said. "We lost to Delaware in the last game 11-9. That was a tough one to take, because we almost came back."
The team depended on strong pitching from Rebecca Shamis, Madison Asher and Melissa Donnelly, and timely hitting by Kirsten Halfon and Hope Dobrzynski.
Despite their journey ending at Regionals, the team had a great time hanging out with the teams from other states. Ashley Passaro, a Long Beach High School tenth-grader and power-hitting first baseman for the team, said that the team spent most of the time hanging out with the friendly New Jersey team and avoiding an arrogant Pennsylvania team.
"There were so many girls there," Ashley said. "It was a lot of fun."
The Long Beach team also provided fashion accessories to tournament officials, Halfon said. According to Halfon, Shamis was very generous in giving out Long Beach hats and pins to anyone who asked, except for Halfon.
"He's there giving out the hats to the umpires and anybody who asks, but I can't get a hat or a pin from the guy," he laughed.
Halfon was on the receiving end of one souvenir, though he may not have asked for it: a speeding ticket. "We had a convoy going up to Regionals," he said. "I'm trying to catch up to the rest of the pack, and I get pulled over. It's funny now, though."
With the season over, most of the girls will look forward to playing softball in high school, before trying to win the state tournament again next summer. Passaro said that some of the girls will be too old to play in the Junior division, and younger girls will have to be brought up. The older girls will move on the Senior division.
"It's like a big cycle," Passaro said. "You lose some great players, but then you pick up a few great players. But these girls all have one year left, at least."
With a strong softball program in the high school, and a young crop of players waiting for their chance to shine in the future, it doesn't look as though this will be the only state championship Long Beach will claim.
