SAUGUS — The Saugus baseball team had a solid season in 2017 under first-year head coach Joe Luis, catching fire at the end of the season and making the state tournament. From there, the Sachems won a game (an upset of North Reading) before bowing out to a much stronger Lynnfield team in the second round.
This year, the goal is to go even further.
“It was a very satisfying year,” Luis said. “Our goal was to get to the tournament and win a game, and we did that. So now it’s time to focus on going even further in the tournament, and I think we have a good group of guys to do that.”
The Sachems will have to replace some key contributors to last year’s team, including infielder Jimmy Alcott, outfielder Brendan Ronan and Agganis all-star pitcher Justin Horvath. In total, just five seniors are returning this season — three of them starters.
“Those are some tough guys to replace, for sure,” said Luis. “We’ll really need the upperclassmen we have coming back to step into those leadership roles and then all the other guys to step up right behind them.”
Those three returning senior starters, Mike Mabee, Steve Pettenati and Paul Stamatopoulos, will be utilized in multiple ways. Pettenati and Mabee, in addition to their responsibilities in the field and at the plate, will be a part of a “pitcher-by-committee” philosophy in order to take the place of last year’s ace in Horvath. Other guys that will be added into the pitching mix will be senior Colby Murphy, junior Todd Tringale and junior Dominic Clark, who is currently recovering from an injury suffered during wrestling season. Junior Ronnie Paolo is also someone who will likely make an impact in 2018.
“It really is a pitcher-by-committee approach, we don’t have that dominant ace this year,” Luis said. “We’re going to rely on a lot of different guys to eat up innings this year, and they’ll be guys who haven’t had a ton of varsity pitching experience to this point.”
The preseason has gotten off to a pretty slow start for the Sachems this year, through no fault of their own. Weather has kept Saugus cooped up in the gym for the first few days of tryouts, so Luis and his staff have been using the time to evaluate and organize their rosters.
“It’s tough every year, but we’ve been using this time to really evaluate all 50 of the guys who have come in and start organizing the rosters,” Luis said. “We haven’t been able to do too much in terms of actual baseball work yet, and it looks like the snow might keep us off the field for a little while longer.”
Luis says he wants the Sachems to get off to a better start than they did last year. Saugus opened the 2017 season with a 1-5 record before recovering to go 7-7 down the stretch to qualify for the state tournament.
“We need to start better,” Luis said. “I think now that all of the guys know what I’m looking for and what kind of philosophy we use it’ll be an easier transition. Last year, everyone was still getting used to each other early in the season, then we were able to catch fire at the end of the year. I want us to start off well this year, and hopefully that will carry us to an even more successful season.”
Saugus gets the regular season underway on April 9 with a road game against Everett.