WM Alum Lombardo to Continue Baseball Career at St. John's

Former Ward Melville baseball star Kyle Lombardo was lightly recruited out of high school, but after a dynamite first season at Suffolk County Community College, St. John’s University came calling, and he happily obliged.

Lombardo committed in June to continue his baseball career at St. John’s, which has reached the NCAA Tournament in each of the past two seasons and is widely considered the top collegiate program in the state.

“It’s everything I ever wanted,” Lombardo said. “I wanted to play at the highest level I could. I can’t wait to get started.”

Despite leading the Patriots to the 2009 league championship and playing in front of scouts routinely with Mets draftee Steven Matz throwing weekly, Lombardo didn't draw any scholarship offers from major four-year programs. He opted to enroll at Suffolk, where he played under longtime coach Eric Brown.

Lombardo seized his opportunity to play daily, batting a team-best .395 with 44 runs scored, 35 RBI and 32 stolen bases. The Clippers rose to No. 1 in the country and reached the College World Series in Tyler, Texas, where they eventually finished fifth.

Suffolk has had a pipeline with the Red Storm for some time, more recently sending Bruce Kern (Yaphank) and Dan Burawa (Rocky Point) to the Queens school. Each eventually got drafted by a major league team – Kern by the Colorado Rockies, Burawa by the New York Yankees – and another Suffolk-turned-St. Johns player, James Lomangino (Ronkonkoma), could get the call in 2012.

Lombardo has similar dreams, although he calls parting with Suffolk “bittersweet” because of the relationship he forged with Brown.

“I want to keep playing this game until they tell me I’m not good anymore,” Lombardo said. Of Brown, he said, “I can’t thank him enough. He’s the reason why I’m at St. John’s and I want to represent him and Suffolk for my three years at St. John’s.”

This summer, Lombardo has played the infield for the Westhampton Aviators, one of five teams that make up Hamptons Collegiate Baseball, a rising summer college organization that makes up a division of the prestigious Atlantic Collegiate Baseball League. Through Thursday, Lombardo was batting .291 with a homer and 11 RBI in 32 games.

Aviators coach Jeff Quiros, a former assistant at St. John’s, expects Lombardo will compete for the second base job next spring. The Red Storm’s shortstop this past season, Joe Panik, was drafted in the first round by the San Francisco Giants, and Quiros expects second baseman Matt Wessinger, a 37th-round pick of the Kansas City Royals, to pass on the pros and slide over to short his senior season.

“He’s a good fit for St. John’s,” Quiros said. “He’s a kid with tremendous baseball instincts. He really knows the game. He’s going to hit, he can run and he has the ability to play multiple positions, and [St. John’s head coach Ed Blankmeyer] loves that.”

Lombardo will finish his summer with the Aviators and vie for playing time beginning in September.

“I’m told that I’m going to have every opportunity to play, and I have to take advantage of it," he said. "I really want to make my mark in the fall.”