POBJFK's Varsity baseball team, which was not mentioned as one of the top teams in Newsday's initial baseball review, surprised many as it went through its regular season by posting an impressive 16 and 5 record, tying Herricks for second place in Conference A-II.

POBJFK was ranked fifth entering the Nassau County Conference A playoffs and unlike the top four ranked teams, Massapequa, East Meadow, MacArthur and Valley Stream Central, one loss and the Plainview Hawks would be eliminated from the playoffs. The top four seeds would need to lose two games to be eliminated so the Hawks had their hands full.

POBJFK's team was led by the strong pitching of seniors Joe Vozila, seven wins and one loss (to county finalist East Meadow); Mark Acierno, five wins and three losses; Junior Chris Campbell, four wins and one loss which was a two-hit loss to county finalist East Meadow; and sophomore Michael Harris, two wins and one loss. Offensively, the team was led by the hitting of Lee Lipschutz, Brett Taranda, Rob Bonani and Mark Acierno and backed up by some excellent play by Jon Schubach, Dan Sitruk, Scott Bauer, Evan Lupion and Mike Harris.

The first round of the playoffs, the Hawks faced Farmingdale and behind the strong six hit pitching of Mark Acierno and the clutch RBIs of Evan Lupion and Scott Bauer, the Hawks defeated the Dalers by a final score of 5 to 1.

Round 2, the Hawks faced #4 ranked MacArthur, who they defeated during the regular season. The game went down to the wire, with Plainview trailing 2-1 in the sixth inning, Dan Sitruk singled in the tying run and Scott Bauer drove in the go ahead run with an RBI bunt. Mike Harris then added to the onr run lead by homering in the seventh inning. Joe Vozila pitched a strong 6 1/3 innings and Mike Harris came on to close out the game for the save and a 4-2 win. Plainview now moved on to face #3 seed East Meadow, with the winner moving on to the Nassau County A championship game.

The semifinal game of the Nassau Class A playoffs turned out to be a pitching duel between Plainview's Chris Campbell and East Meadow's Jason Szwejkowski. Both teams were evenly matched but in the third inning East Meadow broke through with two runs on a two-out single, which turned out to be the last hit for East Meadow.

Now it was time for Plainview to come back. Plainview threathened in three of four innings but left two men in scoring position on each occasion. Finally Plainview scored in the sixth inning to make the score 2-1 going to the final inning. Scott Bauer led off the seventh with a base hit and was sacrificed to second with one out, Mike Harris then line out to left and it was up to Lee Lipschutz who hit a slow roller past the pitcher's mound. The shortstop fielded the ball and threw low and wide to first base, Lipschutz appeared to beat the throw but on a controversial call, he was called out by the first base umpire ending Plainview's season.

Despite the combined two hitter by Chris Campbell and Mike Harris, Plainview's season came to an end. The loss was a tough one to take but each player should be proud of what they accomplished throughout the season. Their playoff pitching allowed a total of four runs over the three games and they played a fine defense. Congratulations to Coach Collelouri and Coach Rothman on a job well done. Eighteen wins, six losses are not bad for a team who was not expected to compete for the Nassau County championship.