JTHS BASEBALL By: Matthew Lemieux

       Coming off of a good run in the Last Dance Tournament and with a couple of strong Seniors graduating, the Jefferson Falcons Boys Varsity Team still has high hopes for the 2021 season. 

      The Boys Varsity team looks to have a winning season with a possible conference title and a run in the state sectionals. Head Coach of the  Falcons, Jason Kalish, talks about the team and their strategies and challenges going into the 2021 season. “I expect nothing less than a  banner for the year and it is a very realistic opportunity if everyone stays healthy and plays how we are capable of playing,” Kalish states.

    The 2019 season was a very exciting year for the Falcons. They had a bunch of big time players and good young players for that year. The Falcons were expecting to put up a banner and have a good state run. Unfortunately the season didn’t go how the team planned. The next season was supposed to be another big year for the Falcons but because of the coronavirus, they did not have a season. The Falcons lost a couple big time players such as Zach Roskowsy, Johnny Knox, and Justin Cece. Kalish talks about losing those players and what he thinks the team will be without them. “I think that we have enough very good players with who's returning, and I am expecting a big year.”

       The Falcons lost some good players but other teams in their conference lost a lot of players too. Teams such as Wallkill Valley, Newton, and Highpoint aren’t as strong as they were in the previous years. The Falcons had a lot of good young players the past two years and now for the 2021 season, most of the Varsity team are Seniors.

    With losing last year, a lot of the Seniors didn’t get the Varsity time they were going to and that may have an affect on experience and being comfortable playing at the Varsity level. Kalish talks about his Varsity team as a whole. “Pitching needs to step up, I am not worried about our lineup because we have more than nine hitters that can hit at the Varsity level in the program. The pitching is also inexperienced at the Varsity level and most pitchers haven’t pitched too much Varsity because of the missed year.” Pitchers for the Varsity level are very inexperienced. Pitchers such as Matt Lemieux, Andrew Weber, Jack Urbano, and Nate Do were supposed to be big time pitchers for the Varsity team behind Seniors Zach Roskowsky and Johnny Knox. Since those four lost last season, they don’t have a whole lot of Varsity pitching experience so that could affect their performances. 

       I asked Kalish what he thinks the team needs to work on this pre-season and he said, “With losing our season last year, the team didn’t get to implement a lot of 1st and 3rd situations, and with having two years off, the team needs to go over a lot of situational baseball in practices.” Before The Last Dance, the last time the Falcons played together was in a summer league. A lot of schools go into this summer league to just play games and have the players try to show the coaches what they can do. The last time the Falcons won this league, they won states the next year. The Falcons won the summer league again last summer against a constant state championship winning team, Governor Livingston.

    Coach Kalish has been very excited for the 2021 baseball players ever since they came into high school. He knew it was going to be full of talented players and they were going to be very good. The last time the Jefferson Falcons won the state championship was in 2016, and with high hopes for last year’s season and Coronavirus canceling everything, the Jefferson Falcons look to hang up another banner this year.