Pine Crest Youngsters Growing Up In 2013

Pine Crest gave a new meaning to the term youth power last year as a team with only four seniors reached the regional quarterfinals.

The team achieved its success by learning from its mistakes and peaking at the right time as it got hot the second half of the year. The Panthers took their lumps early, losing three consecutive District 4A-13 games to Chaminade-Madonna, Cardinal Gibbons and University before coming back to avenge those loses later. The Panthers opened the year 4-6 but finished the season winning 13 of its final 18 games for a final record of 17-11. The Panthers ended up third in the district with a 7-5 record.

Pine Crest coach Glen Pierson credits the attitude he and his coaching staff had going into last year knowing how young the players were.

“We really took the approach that you’ve got to let them make mistakes without feeling bad about it and learning from those mistakes and not putting pressure on these guys, let them relax,” Pierson said. “And early on, what they noticed was how calm we were through situations where we weren’t necessarily playing clean. And as a coaching staff, we talked about it as opposed to being emotional about it, and they fed off of that, and all of a sudden they stopped worrying about making mistakes and ended up playing extremely sound. We felt that what they needed was to be young, play the game, enjoy the game and learn from their mistakes rather than declaring the obvious that they messed up. That’s not the way we wanted to be coaching, and it worked for us and it worked for them.”

Steven Goldberg is entering his fifth year on the varsity team, having moved up as an eighth-grader. An exceptional season wasn’t in his mind or that of his teammates, but things just clicked.

“Going into the year, we really didn’t expect much because we had such a young team,” Goldberg said. “We had three or four seniors, and we really came together as a team. That’s when I really saw all the younger guys starting to step up and battle through injuries, and we rode a really hot pitcher through districts and into the regional quarterfinal.”

The Panthers started the season with almost an entirely new year from the year before and formed a lineup consisting of three freshman and three sophomores, two seniors and a junior.

“Going into regional play, we knew we were young, but what was nice was we had seen tremendous improvement throughout the course of the year and we played two very, very good district teams in the first two rounds and came out on top, and then we lost to a very good [Coral Springs] Charter team, but we were in that game,” Pierson said. “It was a very competitive game, and I think those three games gave us the confidence regardless of who we face. And it ended up being [Monsignor] Pace and it was a 2-1 game that we lost on a walk-off single. We were in it. We were one run away. We had the bases loaded with two outs tied 1-1. We were that close to opening that up.”

Fast forward five months or so and the Panthers are gearing up for another season of development and are picking up where they left off with energy and enthusiasm.

“We know coming back this season with the core of the team returning and still young, three freshman become three sophomores, three sophomores become three juniors, and we also have two of our top arms — what we believe will be our top arms — who really didn’t get to contribute much last year back for this year,” Pierson said. “So we’re very optimist that we’re going to be competitive every game.”

The confidence is there despite the loss of top pitchers Shea Parikh and Sam Kava. Parika led the staff last year, going 7-3 with 42 strikeouts and a 2.45 ERA in 60 innings. Kava went 4-2 with 27 strikeouts and 4.75 ERA in 28 innings.

Don’t expect the Panthers to suffer in pitching despite the loss of Parikh and Kava. Pine Crest is armed and ready with Adam Saks, who threw 25 innings last year, Alex Perez, Chandler Cissel, Chris Koppenhaver, Matt Rothenberg, Miguel Cabrera, Goldberg and Zack Kone having pitched some last year.

Perez, a junior entering his fourth year on the varsity team (came up as an eighth-grader), returns as catcher, and the entire infield returns to make defense a strong suit for the Panthers this year. Cissel, also a junior in his fourth year on the varsity team, will be the guy at first base. Saks and Kone will play second base and short stop, respectively, and Rotheberg will anchor third.

In the outfield, Goldberg returns as center fielder and is joined by senior right fielder Eric Collazo and sophomore left fielder Ben Fiedler.

“We believe defense wins championships,” Pierson said. “In our first fall ball game, we played so well in the field, it was like we didn’t stop playing from regionals last year, so I’m excited about how these guys have developed over the summer and just kept working hard at fielding the ball and releasing ball and strong arms, so I’m excited about it.”

“They have terrific excitement, great work ethic and excellent team chemistry, so their attitude is excellent. We have a terrific group of guys and what’s very rewarding for me is that this being my 19th year I’ve been blessed to have a lot of great kids and a lot of great teams at Pine Crest, but watching a young group of guys grow like this is pretty darn special.”

Goldberg also feels the excitement and said he plans to continue to lead by example and help the continued development of his younger teammates.

“I feel if I show them everyone here is going to work and they buy into that, we can have a really successful season,” Goldberg said. “This is most excited I’ve seen a group of Pine Crest baseball players. Everyone’s ready to work hard, everyone’s ready to build off of last year and see where it will take us this year.”

Cissel also has a good read on the team this year and echoes Goldberg and Pierson’s sentiments about confidence being high and a winning attitude in place. Competing in District 4A-13, one of the toughest districts in the area, means there’s no time to let up and there’s no game that can be taken lightly, he said.

“We have fierce mentality,” Cissel said. “We ended up short in a few close games. We’re just doing everything harder and not letting the game to fall into the other team’s hands this year. We come in with the feeling we can win every game. We know every team is talented and can come out victorious, but we feel going in that we have the ability to win.”

Despite losing big bats Kava (.388 average last year), Parikh (.361) and Michael Pozzuoli (.321), hitting also should be a positive for Pine Crest this year as five players who hit .279 or better will be in the lineup. Kone had 37 hits and a .370 average last year. Cissel hit .346, Perez .289, Rothenberg .286 and Fiedler and Goldberg .279.

“I expect our numbers to be higher. I’m pretty excited about where our offense is going to be,” Pierson said. “Chandler Cissel, no doubt he’ll be a force to be reckoned with, as will Zack Kone. I think they all will hit very well for us this year.”

Success on the field is complemented by success in the classroom at Pine Crest, and the fall practice and game schedule is set accordingly. Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday are practice days with Saturday being game day. An occasional Tuesday game is thrown in here and there. Wednesday is reserved for catching up on school work.

“If a kid tells me they’re overwhelmed with work, we’re not going to give them a hard time, but we’re going to encourage them to manage both so that they can be the complete scholar-athlete and by scholar-athlete I literally mean top academic kids,” Pierson said. “At Pine Crest we’re blessed that 100 percent of our kids go on to college. Maybe that includes baseball, maybe it doesn’t, but there’s no doubt they’re all going to be qualifying to go to top schools across the country. We want our baseball program to be consistent with their academia goals and their dreams of being in those schools but at the same time, giving them a chance to have that sport, that competitive team experience that baseball can provide.”

“It is what makes makes Pine Crest School unique within a mecca of baseball talent, and that is our kids get it done in the classroom and on the field. What we see that’s different here is these kids go home tired from a game, they study, they’re tired from a practice, they’re bearing down to learn or review or prepare for a test. They understand that this is just a step within a day. It’s not the end of the day.”

Leave a comment using your facebook account!