Lawrence Woodmere Academy captures PSAA baseball crown

Karim Shabazz played basketball at Lawrence Woodmere Academy a few years before his current players on the Tigers baseball team were born, but that doesn’t mean he forgot what high school athletics is all about.

“We beat some teams early on and the guys were thinking they were pretty good, then we lost to Waldorf in the last regular season game and the guys bought in to what we were saying,” Shabazz said.

That loss, Shabazz said, helped propel LWA to reel off three consecutive playoff victories, including a 6-5 win over Grace Church School (Manhattan) in the Private Schools Athletic Association (PSAA) championship game at MCU Park in Coney Island on May 25. The ballpark is home to the Brooklyn Cyclones, a minor league team in the Mets organization. It was the first PSAA crown for LWA (11-2) since 2011.

The Tigers staked Grace to a 3-0 lead in the top of the first inning, then rallied to tie the game. In the fifth, Grace again grabbed the lead thanks to an errant pickoff throw by pitcher Noah Warren that skipped on the artificial turf field, which scored a pair of unearned runs. LWA rallied again in the bottom of the frame with three for the one-run lead that they didn’t relinquish.

Warren, who was named the game’s most valuable player, tossed a complete 7-inning game with eight strikeouts, three earned runs and three walks. The sophomore knocked in three runs on 2-2 hitting. Seniors Jordyn Berry and Jake Elowitz were also 2-2, and Berry had two RBI.

Shabazz, who was an assistant coach last year when the Tigers, said leading the squad to the title was “surreal” especially after stepping in to coach the team as the season was just beginning. “We just said to the guys take it day-by-day and don’t worry about the other teams and what the teams did last year,” he said. “Even though those teams beat us last year we’re a year stronger.”

That observation certainly proved prophetic.