Cover credit – James Vessalico
Batters up, the East Islip Redmen have taken the field for the 2025 varsity softball season. The young squad is on a roll this season, with the offense producing and the pitchers getting it done on the mound.
The Redmen are members of the New York State Public High School Athletic Association (NYSPHSAA) and compete in League IV. The girls are 5-1-0 this season and sit at the top of their league.
The varsity team is led by head coach Jason McGowan, a seasoned skipper in the dugout. McGowan began his nineteenth season at the helm, making stops at Bayshore, Half Hollow Hills, and Plain Edge before finding his home at East Islip in 2012. McGowan is joined by assistant coaches Katie Wallace and Mike Montouri.
Nineteen seasons is a pretty long time, which means some wins were accumulated over the years. On April 2, McGowan earned his 300th career win as a varsity head coach. The skipper was honored for his achievement with a commemorative banner at the game on April 4.
“It was awesome, it’s a great feeling. 300 is nice, that’s a lot of wins and it feels good. It’s really about the kids, all these athletes that came through my programs. Just tough kids that were willing to buy into my system,” said McGowan.
Being a varsity athlete is a big responsibility, but if you buy into the program, you usually find yourself in a better place when you leave it.
“We go hard; you have to be dedicated to go six days a week, two, three hours a day. It’s a huge commitment and we do the offseason and all winter,” said McGowan. “I’ve never even had to make a cut on my team. These kids know, it’s just from years past that if you want to play for East Islip Varsity you have to be all in. If they’re all in and they want to make that commitment, my goal is to make not just better players, but better people. We become like a family.”
The 2024 season brought an unexpected turn of events that saw a young pitcher make her mark on the program.
“We have no seniors on the team. Caitlin Ropiak, then an eighth grader, had to jump onto the mound and figure it out. She was thrown into the fire and long story short, her [Ropiak] as a pitcher, led us to the County final as an eighth grader. Our oldest starter was a tenth grader; we were a tremendously young team, but tough,” said McGowan.
Culture is an integral component for any sports team. McGowan has cultivated a culture that focuses on the present.
“We have t-shirts. After every home game, the kids wear a t-shirt and they hang their jerseys on the fence. The t-shirt says ‘TODAY’, that’s all it says. It says East Islip Softball and in big letters it says ‘TODAY’. We don’t care about last year or making the County finals with our oldest kid in tenth grade. We don’t care about the championships we’ve won in the past. It’s about today.
I don’t care what happened yesterday, I don’t care about tomorrow, let’s focus on today. We literally take it a day at a time,” McGowan told The Messenger.
