St. Bernard Baseball Receives Education In Florida

You can't blame those who snicker when they hear a scholastic team's trip to Florida during April vacation viewed as "educational."

Sure, five days in 88-degree weather, afternoons poolside or on an Atlantic Coast beach, a seaside dinner at a Pompano Beach waterfront home and some baseball on the side, that's any teen's idea of independent study.

But when you hear about the St. Bernard baseball team's trip to the Miami area last week, you must say they received a baseball indoctrination that few teams around here will ever experience in a lifetime of playing in Connecticut.

The Saints split two games during the Florida trip, but the vacation postcards and emails detailed much more than "we were .500."

St. Bernard conducted a rare practice for a scholastic team in the Florida Marlins' Sun Life stadium. They also played a game against Miami Westminster Christian, maybe the strongest team any Connecticut squad has ever played.

Consider MWC is two-time defending Florida champ, featuring All-America shortstop David Thompson, who set a state record of 19 home runs in one season last year as a sophomore. That's a state record in Florida, the hotbed of American baseball along with California, where kids can play year-round and start their scholastic season Feb. 3.

"He already has 14 this year and has committed to play baseball and football at the University of Miami," St. Bernard coach Bill Buscetto said. "They had six players who were already signed or committed to Division I programs."

The final score of Westminster Christian 24, St. Bernard 1 was not the game's lasting impression.

"The experience our kids get by watching these kids play the game and prepare is priceless," Buscetto said. "It would be unfair to compare them to any high school program up here, it is just a totally different world down there."

While we languished through rainy, overcast and chilly during school vacation, St. Bernard baseball lavished in 88 degree weather for eight days.

"The trip was outstanding, the weather was perfect," Buscetto said. "We played a lot of baseball, but the kids also had time to relax by the pool and go to the beach another day." Buscetto also said that his father hosted a dinner for about 45 players, parents and friends at his house on the water in Pompano Beach one night.

During one day of baseball business, Buscetto used his connections with a former University of New Haven teammate, who runs stadium operations at Sun Life, home of the Florida Marlins. The Saints conducted an intersquad scrimmage on the field and toured the stadium.

"Not only did he allow us to practice and play for free at the stadium, but he took the kids and parents on a tour of the locker rooms, owner's luxury suite, and into the offices of the management team," Buscetto said.

Buscetto chose to beef up the schedule on the Florida trip after the Saints went 3-0 last season against smaller schools. These games count, so St. Bernard did not want to come back home empty-handed in the win column.St. Bernard spotted Olympic Heights a 3-0 lead before rallying for a 9-4 win, ending the trip 1-1 and coming home with a 4-2 record.

"Some hits fell in and they made some timely errors, so we ended up winning the game going away which was a bit of a surprise, because they are a large school with 3,000 kids," Buscetto said.

"That was  a great win for our kids to bounce back that way," he said. " Trevor Turgeon pitched a great game, and Avery Barlow, Jon Malchiodi, and Izzy Davila led the offense."

Barlow, Pete Aldrich and Davila have hit well thus far for the Saints, who have also welcomed the varsity debut of  freshman shortstop Billy Buscetto. The Florida trip proved to be well work the fundraising efforts to make it happen. It was like a second spring training, this time in pristine weather against supreme competition.

"We usually had two workouts a day, whether it was two practices, or a game and a practice so the kids really worked on their game down there," Buscetto said. "Hopefully as we come back up north, we can see the results of the hard work they put in."