Bayside has championship aspirations

Stephen Piorkowski is always thinking ahead, about training future pitchers and how to remain on top in the borough.
For once, the Bayside softball coach can focus squarely on this season. Returning a stellar team in the field, including five seniors and three four-year starters, in addition to ace right-hander Nicole Marra in the circle, expectations of a city championship are not out of the question.
“It’s fair to think anything less than that is a disappointment,” he said. “We have the potential. … Do we have the talent to do it? Sure.”
“We’re always aiming for a championship,” second baseman-turned-catcher Danielle Brustmeyer said. “We want to get past that and dominate.”
It begins with Marra, Piorkowski said, a senior who owned Queens last year and has gotten off to a quick start thus far. Despite working with less then her best stuff, she has already registered two shutouts in their three league wins. The move of Brustmeyer to behind the plate has been a seamless transition.
“She frames the ball well,” Marra said.
So far, so good all-around. The Commodores easily dispatched of two of the borough’s top teams - Townsend Harris and Cardozo - by a combined 20 runs. In the victory over the Hawks, a 7-0 blanking, the Commodores battered right-hander Cecilia Ehresman, one of the city’s top windmill pitchers. Marra and right fielder Tai Anne Bishop had two hits apiece and third baseman Nicole Vitiello added two runs batted in.
“You could see it was going to happen,” Piorkowski said. “Their swings looked real good.”
They have hung tough with some of the city’s top competition - Madison, Mary Louis, Kellenberg and Christ the King - in non-league contests, too, when in previous seasons the margin was far wider.
“It’s real exciting this year,” Piorkowski said. “They’re doing what it takes.”
Piorkowski schedules such a schedule every spring to prepare for the postseason. It worked last spring - the Commodores rolled to an undefeated regular league season before running into Tottenville and Susan Wagner in the double-elimination playoffs.
This year, with the experience Marra gained from those losses and the maturity of the other starters, such as first baseman Cadie Chu, shortstop Mariel Perez and Bishop, May could be different.
“The doors are wide open,” Marra said. “We can go far. It all depends on how hard we work. We have more confidence in each other and we believe in each other more.”
“I can’t wait,” she later added, “for the playoffs.”