ID Workout To Feature High School Ballplayers At Islanders Field

San Francisco State baseball coach Tony Schifano is excited to be able to visit Islanders Field in Lathrop for the first time when he hosts an Identification Workout for high school players on Saturday, Nov. 7.

A sweet yard, Islanders Field is part of the River Islands master planned community, which also boasts homes, soccer fields, parks, trails, and a Boathouse Restaurant.

Legendary Danville HOOTS Baseball Club president and coach Don Johns is the Islanders Field site director.
“I’ve seen it online. I’ve read about it and I’ve talked to coaches that have been there,” Schifano said of the field christened in May 2019. “My pitching coach Cameron Rowland has worked a few camps at Islanders Field. … He says it’s absolutely spectacular.”
Over 60 young prospects are expected for the Identification Workout. Top high school talent can learn from the Gators coaching staff.
“We’re gonna have a great turnout,” said Schifano, a former UC Davis baseball star and recruiting coordinator, of the ID camp. “We’ll probably have to break the day into two parts to make sure we get maximum evaluations and exposure for the kids. You want the kids to feel like they get the best opportunity to showcase their skills but also have a learning experience.”

Schifano normally holds Identification Workouts at San Francisco State’s Maloney Field, but the campus is closed due to COVID-19. Thus, Islanders Field is filling the void as a site for modified workouts in a safe, outdoor environment.

"From a field standpoint we're just trying to help the players maneuver through this," Johns said, referencing the difficult times for athletes during school shutdowns.

Johns and Schifano have had a strong relationship over the past 13 years, beginning when Schifano was a coordinator at UC Davis. Schifano affectionally calls a Johns a “baseball man.”
“The Danville HOOTS were always one of the most well-organized organizations coming into those team camps (at Davis),” Schifano recalled. “Don always brought what we called an ‘army of players’ in. He had the dugouts full, but the thing that we always respected about Don was his players were engaged every inning, every pitch. Don coached ‘em up, and those were the kind of players that we wanted to bring into the UC Davis program.”
UC Davis ended up signing a handful of Johns' Danville HOOTS players.

“Some were really, really solid, good players like Tino Lipson and Brad Pluschkell and we recruited the Piscotty brothers who played for (Johns); Ryan Anderson, who had a great career at UC Davis, so the relationship was strong from the very beginning and it’s continued over the years,” Schifano said.

San Francisco State baseball has surged under Schifano, heading into his fifth season. The Gators made it back-to-back California Collegiate Athletic Association Tournament appearances in 2019 after earning the most wins in a season since 2004.

A coach on the rise and former HOOTS player, Rowland can relate to the high school prospects because he’s been in their shoes as a former baseball and football star at Foothill High and Diablo Valley College. He also pitched at Chabot in 2014, where he was a first-team all-Northern California Conference selection. He next pitched for two years at Nevada and then helped Angelo Scavone at Foothill as an assistant coach before landing on Schifano’s staff at SFSU.

“He was the right man at the right time,” Schifano said of Rowland. “He’s been amazing ... We’ve been in the top three in every category that matters in pitching in the conference in the last two years, and I think that’s a testament to Cameron and his development with the guys.”

Rowland views the Identification Workout as an “important camp” during these uncertain times for school sports.

“I think the guys are really looking forward to it,” Rowland says. “They’re able to kind of get out of their bubble a little bit with where they’ve been the past few months and go out and compete.”

Rowland expects to see pitchers touching 88-90 mph and hitters pounding balls off the outfield fence, but the key aspect for players will be their mental approach overall.
“It’s about the day-to-day development and really learning when you’re there,” he says. “Whether you go to showcases or prospect camps or ID camps, everyone’s gonna have different philosophies and they’re gonna teach certain things, but the biggest thing is soaking it in, soaking in all the information you can and learning on a daily basis.”

Popular Islanders Field, conveniently centrally located in the NorCal region, has hosted the NorCal Premier World Series Showcase Event, NorCal World Series Elite League, PBR Baseball Report, Velocity Baseball, and Bay Area World Series (BAWS), and varsity high school games.

For information about the ID Workout, call Tony Schifano, 530-219-1121, or email tschif@sfsu.edu.