New Becahi boss had a lot of help from his coaching friends
Matt Corsi suffered his first loss as Bethlehem Catholic baseball coach on Tuesday and it wasn’t pretty.
After the Golden Hawks began Corsi’s first season with three wins, Becahi suffered a 16-0 defeat in a game shortened to four innings by the mercy rule.
Some coaches might overreact to a defeat in which his team was outhit 10-2 and committed four errors.
But that’s not likely the case with
Corsi, who may be a first-year coach but has been around local scholastic baseball for a long time and has seen it all from a variety of angles.
He knows baseball at any level, especially high school ball, can be like jumping on a trampoline and you’ve got to provide stability for the kids through the ups and downs.
Corsi is Becahi graduate and learned a lot from former Golden Hawks coach Mike Grasso. In fact, he said he wouldn’t
be where he is without Grasso.
“I was 19 years and coached little league baseball at North Central Little League and when the season ended they asked me if I wanted to coach the junior legion team,” Corsi said. “I panicked because I was a 19-year-old kid. I didn’t know much about coaching baseball. I went to a Becahi football game and saw Coach Grasso and asked him if I could help out with the [ junior varsity] that next season and he said ‘Absolutely, buddy, we’d love to have you back.’ So, I was able to help out the JV team and from that point I never looked back. So I owe Coach Grasso everything.”
He also benefited from nine seasons at Central Catholic on Matt Garza’s staff and four years at Allen with Rob Leskosky before returning to Becahi in 2018.
“I always say I had the four best mentors you could have in local baseball starting with Coach Grasso, and he taught me the Becahi way,” Corsi said. “Then I was with Coach [Matt] Garza at Central. I used to always worry about winning. Coach Garza wanted to win, but he also wanted to develop good young men and wanted them to succeed in life. I learned it’s not just about the W’s; it’s about where they are going after they’re done.
“Then at Allen with Coach Leskosky, I learned that Allen had some of the most respectful kids in the Valley, kids who come ready to play every day,” Corsi added. “Rob brought a college type of mentality to that program. Then another mentor is my good friend Andy Pitsilos, the Liberty coach. Andy and I had conversations every day leading up to my interview for the Becahi job. We continue to have conversations about baseball and coaching. So I have a lot of great coaches who I can call at anytime and they will give me advice on the ins and outs of how to get through this first year.”
Corsi had no delusions about going through the 10 games in the EPC’s Northampton County Division unscathed. While Becahi was able to sweep Northampton in its first series, he said the goal is to get at least a split with every division foe.
He also says it’s important his team stays focused even when the pandemic causes schedule changes, which it already has.
“You’ve got to be able to handle adversity,” he said. “We can only control ourselves. We can’t worry about this school or that school getting shut down and missing a couple of games. This week, we’re supposed to play Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday and if something happens with one of those games, we just roll into the next one.
“The other thing is how we respond if we lose two or three in a row and as strong as the conference, it could happen to anybody. What are we going to do if that happens? Are we going to run and hide, or are we going to shake it off and go after the next team? From what I’ve seen so far, these guys aren’t afraid. These kids are fighters.”
Player of the Week TYLER LePAGE, EMMAUS
The 32-team St. Luke’s Summer High School Baseball Tournament last August not only provided closure for the seniors who missed out on one last spring season due to COVID-19, but it was also an opportunity for underclassmen to show what they can do.
One of them was Emmaus third baseman Tyler LePage, who got significant playing time for the first time and made the most of it by batting over .500 in helping the Green Hornets win the special event capped by a title-game victory over Parkland.
LePage has picked up where it left off. The junior has batted .667 in two games in 2021 with six hits, four RBIs and three runs scored. He was 4-for-4 with a double and three RBIs in Tuesday’s 12-3 win over Central Catholic. He also has had six putouts defensively without an error.
“Tyler understands hitting and everything that goes into it,” Emmaus coach Jeremy Haas said. “He knows his swing and understands his strengths better than most. On top of that, he’s able to have a plan of attack for every at-bat during a game. He is also a tremendous third baseman and one of the best baserunners on our team. He is an all-around gamer and makes everyone around him better.”
Win of the Week
Northwestern Lehigh erupted for 18 runs in the last three innings to erase a 4-3 deficit and post a 21-7 win over host Salisbury on Tuesday. Three-sport athlete Nick Henry was part of a 17-hit attack, going 3-for-5 with four RBIs and five runs scored. Dylan Witkowski, a transfer from Emmaus who had a big basketball season, went 3-for-3 with two doubles and six RBIs.
Game of the Week
Nazareth waited a long time due to COVID-19 to play its first game and made it worth the wait with a 3-1 win over Northampton on Tuesday behind the quality pitching of Ben Pinel. The senior scattered two hits over six innings and struck out eight.
Milestone of the Week
Bloomsburg University’s Chad Cooperman, a fifth-year graduate student from Salisbury who decided to use an additional year of eligibility due to the pandemic, earned his 14th career win when the Huskies beat East Stroudsburg 9-8 on Saturday. Cooperman, who is the school’s all-time leader with 221 strikeouts, improved to 3-0 on the season. Cooperman has 28 strikeouts in 21 innings this season.
His best outing of the season was March 20 when he threw a one-hit shutout in an 8-0 win over Kutztown. Cooperman tied a career-high with 10 strikeouts and walked two.
Coming attraction
The Eastern Pennsylvania Conference will have three dates this season at Coca-Cola Park with tripleheaders on each to showcase all 18 teams. The first one is Thursday when Stroudsburg meets Pleasant Valley at 2 p.m., Whitehall battles Parkland at 4:30 and Allen and Dieruff wrap it up at 7.
The next tripleheader at the home of the IronPigs is April 22 when Bethlehem Catholic plays Easton, Freedom meets Liberty and Northampton takes on Nazareth with games again at 2, 4:30 and 7.
The final tripleheader on April 27 will have the same time slots and feature Pocono Mountain East against Pocono Mountain West, East Stroudsburg North against East Stroudsburg South and Central Catholic against Emmaus.
All spectators are welcome. Spectators will be seated and social distanced in designated areas throughout the stadium and must be masked at all times. Concession stands will be open.
Top 10 rankings Rank, Team, Record
1., Easton, 3-0
2., Parkland, 2-0
3., Emmaus 2-0
4., Notre Dame, 4-0
5., Northwestern, 3-0
6., Liberty, 0-0
7. Pleasant Valley, 2-0
8. So. Lehigh, 3-0
9., Beth. Catholic, 3-1
10., Nazareth, 1-0
Others to watch: Palisades (2-1), Pocono Mt. East (2-1), Salisbury (3-2).
Standings COLONIAL LEAGUE East Division Team, League, Overall
Notre Dame, 2-0, 4-0
Palisades, 2-1, 2-1
Saucon Valley, 1-1, 1-1
Pen Argyl, 0-0, 0-0
Wilson, 0-1, 1-2
Bangor, 0-2, 0-2
West Division
Northwestern, 2-0, 3-0
So. Lehigh, 2-0, 3-0
Salisbury, 2-0, 3-2
Palmerton, 1-1, 1-2
Catasauqua, 0-2, 1-2
Mor. Academy, 0-2, 0-3
No. Lehigh, 0-2, 0-4
EASTERN PENNSYLVANIA CONFERENCE
Lehigh County Division
Team, Division, League, Overall Emmaus, 2-0, 2-0, 2-0
Parkland, 2-0, 2-0, 2-0
Dieruff, 1-1, 1-1, 1-2
CCHS, 1-2, 1-2, 1-3
Whitehall, 1-2, 1-2, 1-3
Allen, 0-2, 0-2, 1-2
Northampton County Division Easton, 1-0, 1-0, 3-0
Nazareth, 1-0, 1-0, 1-0
Beth. Cath., 2-1, 2-1, 3-1
Freedom, 0-0, 0-0, 0-0
Liberty, 0-0, 0-0, 0-0
Northampton, 0-3, 0-3, 0-3 Monroe County Division
Pleas. Valley, 2-0, 2-0, 2-0
PM East, 2-1, 2-1, 2-1
ES South, 1-1, 1-1, 1-1
PM West, 1-1, 1-1, 1-1
Stroudsburg, 1-2, 1-2, 1-2
ES North, 0-2, 0-2, 0-2
Records are through Tuesday’s games.