SemiPro
For as long as SemiPro has been in existence, there hasn’t been a championship that they haven’t won. The SASL championship trophy has been held by Omar Hernandez since his 2020 win with Dynasty. It is now 2022. Let that sink in for a moment.
SemiPro managed to win out both the Spring and Fall seasons in 2021, which from an outsider’s perspective implies total league dominance especially if you looked at their regular season records for both seasons. However, their playoff runs in both Spring and Fall saw almost every single round of playoffs taken to three games. At times, they were down to their final out before taking advantage of timely hitting or timely errors from their opponents. From that perspective, this team’s story is less of pure dominance, but actually more of resilience.
Team chemistry and a relentless attitude no matter what the score is in a game, have been what SemiPro is all about. Their captains Mike Liang and Omar Hernandez quietly lead by example, and morale always remains high with Aroup and Manju perpetually hyping everyone up. From the Spring season to the Fall season in 2021, a few key losses in their left fielder Irfan Musliwala and pitcher Anwar Sadat left some question marks initially whether they would be able to pull through and make up for these losses, but the positional utility of several players on the team proved to be quite useful as they hung on to meet their departed ex-teammates in the Fall 2021 finals, and show them the consequences of taking stands against the family — putting up a 28 run barrage to secure the win in the final game of the 2021 fall championship.
From the offseason additions made by the team, it seems like they are looking to hold onto that trophy well into 2024. While they lost their star player Jerry Liang as well as David Poon who decided to hang up the cleats after winning three straight, they have made some key additions particularly with the 14 rating points that Jerry and David left behind.
Newcomers include:
Veteran Chris Mui who adds additional positional utility, a strong power bat, and veteran experience.
Last year’s rookie Umar Khan who was on his way to an impressive season batting nearly .700 before his season was cut short by a broken finger, he provides both infield and outfield utility, line drive hitting, good speed, and a strong defensive glove.
Veteran Naeem Bhalli steps in to fill the void at shortstop, and his resume of stellar infield defense for over a decade in SASL, be it at SS or 3B, sows that he is more than qualified to fill the role. He also adds a strong bat to the lineup as well.
The team rounds out the roster with Zeshan Hamdani the journeyman infielder with a very underrated glove and an ever improving bat, as well as Ayaz Dar veteran pitcher and player in the league that only adds to the team chemistry and will undoubtedly keep team morale up.
As for the core players returning, the question becomes whether they can keep up their performances from last year, or does the championship hangover quell their hunger? Will Saeed replicate his breakout season from last year? From the amount of softball that many of these guys play during the week, health and staving off injury will be key.
Staying focused and relentless is their pedigree, which will no doubt make them tough to unseat as defending champions.
Roster:
Mike Liang (8)
Omar Hernandez (6)
Saeed Anwar (6)
Adrian Polanco (5)
Naeem Bhalli (5)
Umar Khan (5)
Chris Mui (5)
Kunal Oak (4)
Ronak Jain (4)
Milan Patel (4)
Aroup Sorijum (2)
Manju Shanmugam (2)
Ayaz Dar (2)
Zeshan Hamdani (2)
3 Questions with Captains Omar Hernandez & Mike Liang:
1) Semi Pros won both championships last year. What changes have you made to your roster this year to try to repeat?
Well, we lost Jerry and as every captain knows is very hard to replace a great player but looking at the bright side at least John Sans will be able to sleep at night this season lol. But seriously, we added more depth to our roster. Chris Mui, Naeem, Umar, Zeshan and Ayaz are all great players and we are counting on them to deliver. All these new players will allow us to have more flexibility on the field.
Anwar and Irfan are also gone from our spring team, we lost 2 players with a lot of experience and that can deliver during big moments, but we have shown that we can win without them and our new additions are eager to prove that they are a better fit for the team.
2) What do you expect to be your team’s strength in 2022? And what aspect of your team you feel needs to be worked on?
Our biggest strength is our chemistry; almost every team will have great chemistry when they are winning but when your team is down and you have guys making jokes and cheering for each other that makes every player keep their heads up give their best until the last out. Like I said before our chemistry is a big part of our success, so hopefully we can maintain it with our new additions.
3) With a 56 point cap and 9 teams, how do you think the competition will be and who are your biggest threats?
I believe that the league is going to be very competitive this year with at least the top 6 teams having a real shot at winning it all. The league increasing the cap by 2 points, some great players rated lower and the fact that there are fewer teams to spread the talent around has probably been in favor of some captains and those teams are going to be a threat for sure.
