Hello: Sam Martorella

ESPN HS reported at the end of August that NY M Sam Matorella committed to Michigan’s class of 2012. Little did they know that his name is spelled “Martorella,” but their reporting on his commitment still stands. On with the profilin’:

Lookin' fresh, son

Relevant Articles

Martorella is the most important recruit ever, because he has his own website. No, seriously. Some useful tidbits from that site:

Height: 5′ 9″
Weight: 155 lbs
40 time: 4.7 seconds

The site also reveals that he considers himself a purely offensive midfielder, and was an All-Conference performer in 2010.

Martorella doing his thing on the football field

He’s also a football player for Hewlett, lining up at running back (and racking up lots of scoring). He gets much more press for his high school football team than for his lacrosse team, but I think he was limited (or completely out) for his junior season of high school lacrosse thanks to a knee injury suffered during football season. Apparently, he’s a good enough football player to at least warrant a profile on ESPN’s recruiting arm.

Here’s the only news story I can find for lacrosse. As far as I can tell from (super-limited) high school stats, he’s more a shooter than a feeder from the midfield, and his highlight video (embedded below) bears that out. He may have been limited his junior year thanks to a knee injury.

He plays his club ball with For the Love of the Game, and his profile page on their site lists some of his accomplishments:

Varsity Lacrosse Starter: Freshman, Sophomore (All-Conference), Junior
Varsity Football Starter: Sophomore, Junior (All-County)
Invited to Bluechip 225 Elite- All Star Team
Invited to Top 205

Scholar Athlete Award: Football and Lacrosse
National Honors Society
National Business Honors Society
Principal Advisory Board
PAL Lacrosse Volunteer
Chairman of AYABA- Autism Awareness
Peninsula Counseling Center-Student Leader

That’s a pretty good set of accomplishments (both on and off the field). It’s odd to see a Long Island kid who has accomplished that much in his career not get much D-1 interest. An ACL injury as a junior (and his size) helped contribute to that, no doubt.

According to Inside Lacrosse, he was in the “other midfielders who stood out” category in both Friday sessions of Jake Reed’s Blue Chip Rising Seniors camp.

Other Interest

According to the ESPN HS commitment article, the only other school he considered was Marquette. Since Michigan and Marquette are both brand new programs, that could mean he wasn’t highly-recruited by existing teams, though it seems like he also blames timeline a bit:

“The only thing that surprised me about the recruiting process was how fast other players were able to commit and how early the coaches started… One thing about the recruiting process that would make it easier and less stressful would probably be to holdout on how fast kids commit until they’ve seen all that they could.”

As mentioned above, the timeline issues are probably ACL-related stuff. Either way, his other schools of interest don’t tell us much about his skill level.

Teammates of Note

Hewlett has one other class of 2012 commitment, according to LaxPower (though take it with a slight grain of salt, because Martorella isn’t listed as a Michigan commit): LSM/D Mark Rizzo is headed to North Carolina. Rizzo is ESPN HS’s #63 rising senior.

Hewlett doesn’t seem to be a talent factory by any stretch of the imagination. They had no players go on to college careers from the 2011 class (according to LaxPower, at least), and only one player – Division-2 NYIT commit Jesse Mauro – from the 2010 class. In 2009, two D-2 signees and one D-3 signee came out of the school.

Video

The Upshot

It’s tough to project Martorella’s college career, because his junior year knee injury means that we really don’t know a whole lot about his overall quality as a player – and that’s probably part of what kept many colleges away.

From his highlight video (again, the footage is likely a couple years old by now, thanks to the injury), he seems to be a wing shooter, and almost exclusively a lefty. There’s certainly a place for somebody like that on Michigan’s roster, but depending on how he recovers from his knee injury, he’s going to have to show more athletically to prove that he’s a potential starter down the road.

Michigan’s coaches likely saw him on the club circuit this summer, so they have a good idea of how he’s going to play following his recovery. He’s also tearing it up on the gridiron this fall, so I’m guessing he’ll be healthy this spring.