Creativity May Be Key To Sickles Baseball Success

Every coach wants to begin the season with a cool, confident, veteran team. But Sickles boys baseball simply does not have that luxury this year. They finished 12-12 last season, which is respectable but the graduating class devastated the starting lineup.

Going into baseball season, coach Bob Pagano admits the team will have to “get creative." Here's a breakdown of where the boys are heading into their game on Tuesday at Gaither High School, 7p.m. 

Hitting:

“This year will be a game of speed,” Pagano said.

“You’ll see more stolen bases, bunts or contact hitting to move runners around.”

The top three hitters on last year’s team Mike Sciortino, Anthony Rose and Chase Wilcocks have graduated. Their senior leadership resulted in a combined 81 hits and 19 RBIs. Coach Pagano is hoping players like Sam Machonis and Alex DeGracia can make up for the lost production.

Sam, a junior, is a switch-hitting outfielder who will bat third to start the season. He’s batting .333 five games into the season, with an on-base percentage of .412. His numbers are not eye-popping but his effort on 2/24 against Leto produced two hits in three at-bats, an RBI and a run. Alex, a freshman, is a left-handed batter and will bat fourth in the lineup. He is hitting .267 five games in and has three RBIs.

The most surprising player so far is Brandon Goede.

“We didn’t expect his hitting to take off like it did,” said Pagano.

Brandon is a right-handed batter that plays first base. Brandon is leading his team in batting average (.400), and hits (6).  Brandon went three-for-three against King back on 2/22 and is emerging as a top-half batter for Sickles.

Pitching:

It’s one thing to lose your three top hitters in an off-season. It’s a whole new monster to lose the top three pitchers on your team, especially when you consider a typical high school team has a maximum of four.

“We were caught by surprise losing so many of our pitchers from last year,” said Pagano.

Tripp Merrell and Will Kirby were lost to graduation and their presences will be sorely missed. Zach Miller was penciled in as the #1 pitcher this year but he and his family moved to West Virginia before the school year started. The coaching staff was left looking deep into their roster and even trying out some players that might have to get right on the mound.

“Pitching is harder to teach than hitting; teaching them how to pitch inside, but we’re bringing them around slowly. We’ll definitely be more of a second half team,” said Pagano.

“This is the most coaching we’ve done in ten years. There’s just not the same amount of young talent coming through the school.”

Pagano cites Steinbrenner High School’s completion as a primary culprit of draining the north Hillsborough talent pool.

Luckily for them, senior right-hander, Marc Perez is starting to emerge. He’s been thrust into the #1 spot this year and has weathered it like a true team captain might.

“Marc has taken the number one role on our pitching staff and we as coaches are very proud of him and the way he has performed so far,” said Coach Pagano.

He is holding down a 0.40ERA over his 17+ innings and has only given up one earned run to King back on Feb. 22. He’s got seven strikeouts over that time.

Coaching:

The one stable leg of Sickles baseball this year is the coaching staff. Head Coach Bob Pagano is the only baseball coach in the school’s fourteen-year history. Coach Pagano has seen it all in his time; from regional playoff forays to sub .500 re-building teams. He has weathered the good seasons along with the bad and has always kept them moving forward.

Assistant Coach Chaz Jansen is in his second year with the team. Chaz is a Sickles graduate and was a baseball and soccer player at the school from 2001 to 2004. He started coaching the JV team back in 2008 and has since made the jump up to Varsity.

Pitching Coach Mike Branham is also in his second year. He started out coaching at Citrus Park Little League and had stints as a coach at Jesuit and Gaither before landing at Sickles. Coach Branham will have his hands full coaching Perez up to speed and trying to find a #2 pitcher to fit in the rotation.

“(Marc) Perez has worked real hard in the off-season and the results are starting to show,” said Branham.

Schedule:

The prospects don’t get much brighter for The Gryphons. They are already 1-4 and have to run the gauntlet of District 9, which is always competitive. In March, they will run into a four-game road trip against: Hillsborough, Gaither, Freedom and Chamberlain. Coach Pagano calls this stretch a, “nightmare”.

They finish the road trip to come home for a matchup against a strong Alonso team. They will close out March with a trip to district favorite King.

“It’s not even so much about the district this year. Even our out-of-district games are tough,” said Pagano.

“It used to be you got a break with your non-district games, but now there’s no let up.”

If they can survive the blistering March schedule should have a chance in April. In April, six of their eight games are at home with Leto, Newsome and Plant City in the mix.