By Ted Waddell
Editor’s Note: This the latest in a series of stories about how the county’s scholastic baseball team fared during the 2005 season.
FALLSBURG — June 24, 2005 – The Fallsburg baseball team started out strong, but in the middle of the season encountered a rocky road.
The Comets won four of their first seven games, but then wound up losing six in a row before wrapping up the 2005 season with two victories in their final three contests.
“We started out great, but the middle of our season was kind of disappointing… we wound up finishing a little stronger,” Coach Jeremy Levner said.
Asked to sum up the season, the first-year coach replied, “We started good and we finished good.”
Fallsburg recorded an overall record of 6-10 this spring and went 1-8 in Orange County Interscholastic Athletic Association (OCIAA) Division V.
According to Levner, this season’s record was more a matter of youth rather than poor performance.
He noted that the Comets had three main pitchers this season – Harris Seletsky, Chris Gates and Donald Morton.
Levner said that Seletsky, a junior, was “my number one guy… [he] didn’t pitch as well as he could, but will be good next year.”
Levner noted that Gates, a junior, was “my number two [pitcher].”
“He has some electric stuff, but got hit hard this year,” the coach stated.
Morton, a sophomore, won three games for the Comets.
“He had a great season, and is going to get better as he gets older,” Levner commented.
What was the Comets’ best game of the 2005 baseball season?
“We beat Tri-Valley for Fallsburg’s first league win in three years,” Levner said. “We played real well, we pitched, we hit and we caught the ball. It was a great game for us.”
Worst outing?
Levner said the Comets thought they had Tuxedo beaten when they held a 5-2 lead over the Tornadoes on their home field. But in the bottom of the sixth, Tuxedo scored four runs for a come-from-behind victory.
“That started the downward spiral,” he said. “It took a lot of gas out of our kids… we never recovered from that game.”
Levner said the most memorable moment of 2005 was Gates hitting a couple of homers in the Comets’ game against the Livingston Manor Wildcats.
In gearing up for the 2006 season, Levner said he threw a few sophomores “into the fire” of varsity baseball and that he has “a bunch of kids playing summer baseball.”
“I’m looking forward to next year,” he said. “Almost everybody is coming back, and I think we’ll do pretty good.”