Assassins
Assassins are rebranding after just one season. After just one season under the banner of “Tigers”, captain Rishi has decided to rebrand the team and made a whole bunch of roster moves as well. In their inaugural season, they made it all the way to the Finals.
After finishing 3rd in the regular season standings, they breezed thru the first two rounds and matched up against the no. 1 seed Semi Pros. While they were the slight underdogs, they won game 1 handily before losing games 2 and 3; mainly due to inability to get that clutch hit or mental errors. Rishi decided over the off-season to focus on getting a more balanced team with a team first attitude.
Shocking the entire SASL community, they lost their best player Dan Diiorio and some other key veterans like Adeel, Prince, Naveed, Solyman etc. The look and feel of this team will surely be different. Rishi and new co-captain Thomas put their heads together and looks to have pulled off getting some under the radar signings along with bringing in a few rookies to really stay competitive. Any team being led by Rishi and Thomas who have a lot of recruiting ability will always be competitive.
Roster:
1) Keith Morsey (7) rookie
2) Brian Bilello (7) rookie
3) Narish Ramoutar (6)
4) Shane Rivera (6)
5) Rishi Rampal (5)
6) Ambroix Cruceta (5)
7) Daniel Basile (4)
8) Sajeel Haque (4)
9) Manpreet Sandhu (3)
10) Jeremy Samuel (3) (rookie)
11) Akil Gubbi (3)
12) Azhar Naqvi (3)
13) Arshad Naqvi (2)
14) Thomas Mathew (1)
3 Questions with Captain Rishi Rampal:
1) Your team made the Finals last year (under the team Tigers) but lost in 3. What changes did you make this off season to try and get over the hump?
Yeah it was disappointing for sure to make the finals as a first year coach and lose. That Tigers team was gritty and had resilience but did not have the balance we needed to complete the team. The changes I made is improve the defense in certain positions that we lacked and made the team balanced opposed to a top heavy offense. It was important for us to address those issues going into the new season.
2) What do you expect to be your teams strength in 2022? And what aspect of your team you feel needs to be worked on?
My expectation for my team is to play good defense and have timely hitting to win games. Oh and also whoever says pitching is not important in softbal does not know what they are talking about and I am lucky to have one of the best pitchers in the league. Aspects of my team that may be needed to work on if I were to pick one would be commitment from all the guys, if my guys are committed we will be in good standing.
3) With 56 point cap and 9 teams, how do you think the competition will be and who are your biggest threats?
56 point cap is good as it creates a competitive edge for all teams in the league. I would say that SemiPro, Savages, Young Gunz, HH are going to be competitive in the league.
