Coral Springs Puts Faith In Its Youth

After losing 13 players to graduation this summer, the Coral Springs baseball program found itself with a lot of voids to fill at all areas.

The Colts this year will rely on quality players coming up from the junior varsity squad to help make up for the loss of all their key pitchers in addition to the loss of big bats Lewis Brinson and Alan Sharkey, both of whom were drafted in June.

Despite the challenge that lies ahead for the three-time defending district champions, a sense of optimism abounds among the players and coaches.

“We’ve got a good group of players coming up from JV that were very successful at that level, and we’re trying to get them experience through the summer league and the fall league so that when the regular season starts in the spring, they will have been playing together against this level of competition and hopefully they’ll be able to produce on the field,” Colts manager Frank Bumbales said.

Bumbales will be counting on several players with little or no varsity experience to maintain the success the program has become accustomed to over the past few years. One of those players is catcher Ryan DeNardo.

“We did terrific as a JV squad last year,” DeNardo said. “My freshman year, we had the best record a JV team has ever had [at Coral Springs]. And that’s transferring over to the varsity level.”

The Colts return just two starters from last year’s team: center-fielder Justin Mixon and second baseman Tre Dingus. Mixon hit .267 and scored 11 runs, and Dingus batted .333 and drove in 16 runs.

Mixon and Dingus will try to help make up for some of the big sticks the team lost. Sharkey, who hit .409 with 29 RBI, 20 runs and four home runs, and Brinson, who hit .382 with 21 RBI and 22 runs to go along with his four home runs, are just two of top hitters Springs lost. Dylan Ebel (.375, team-leading 31 runs), Jordan Gleicher (.367) and Aaron Maller (.352) also were heavy hitters.

“This game now is all about manufacturing runs, pitching and playing defense,” Bumbales said. “There’s no more of that bat that sends the ball 400 feet. Now you’ve bats that send the ball 250 feet. And they better be in a line or they’re going to be out. You’re not going to see any home runs in this game. Very few. Very, very, very few. I lost two of the best home run hitters in Broward County, Brinson and Sharkey, they’re both gone now. I have nobody who can hit home runs, so I don’t even want to try it. I want them to realize this game is about hitting the ball square on a line, moving the runners around and scoring runs that way. The guys we have coming in are starting to hit the ball pretty regularly.”

The Colts also lost their four main pitchers: Maller, Brett Schneider, Dalton Wolchick and Jonny Ortiz. The group accounted for 112 of the team’s 150 innings last year. Schneider went 6-1 with 33 strikeouts and a 1.26 ERA in 39 innings pitched, and Maller went 4-0 with 32 strikeouts in 35.2 innings. Wolchick struck out 25 in 20.2 innings and also posted three wins and a 1.02 ERA. Ortiz fanned 14 in 18.1 innings, won two games and had a .038 ERA.

This year’s pitchers will be Jordan Barrett (senior lefty), Dameon Concepcion (senior righty) and Tyler Horn (junior lefty). Mike Montalvo also will pitch some.

Ryan DeNardo, who along with Austin Cocchiola are among the players who will catch in place of Gleicher, said he’s excited about some of the pitchers this year.

“Jordan’s an excellent lefty pitcher with a sick curveball and nasty two-seam,” DeNardo said.

A hallmark of the Coral Springs program is its tough defense, and Bumbales said the team is working hard to maintain that this fall.

“We work hard on defense, and I will tell you, you can teach defense and that’s something that if you work at it, you can get better at it,” Bumbales said. “That’s something that should be in our favor.”

Bumbales said he recognizes that the team’s success the past couple of years has put them in the spotlight and he knows opponents will be gunning for them.

“Every pitcher is going to throw their best at us because we have that target on our backs, and everyone is going to expect us to be the team to beat again,” he said. “We have to play through that and expect that, and we have to lift our game up to that level. We just have to go out and play hard. If you play hard, you’ve got a chance to beat anybody. If you outplay them, you can beat them. You have a chance. If you don’t outplay them, then you don’t have a chance to beat them.”

Winning another district title may be tough to do this year when you factor in the amount of experience the team lost coupled with a stronger district this year in Bumbales’ eye.

“Taravella is going to be much improved,” he said. “They’re going to be a tough team to beat. Douglas is always tough to beat. Coral Glades, they’re going to be tough to beat.”

First-year player Austin Cocchiola is confident in Coral Springs’ chances this year.

“We’re going to try to win districts again and try to get further than [last year’s team] did and just work harder,” Cocchiola said. “If we keep playing the way we are and we keep working harder and harder than we have been doing, then we have a chance to be as good or better than the team we had last year.”

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