Mercer’s Prep teams ready to get season underway
Three days after spring officially arrived in the area, the baseball teams from the New Jersey Independent Schools Athletics Association plan to begin playing regular-season games.
The local prep baseball season is set to open at 4:15 p.m. Thursday when the Lawrenceville School visits the Hun School.
While the weather forecast may be a little mild, this opening-game matchup between two of the top prep teams around figures to be hot. The Raiders defeated the Big Red four times a year ago, so the visitors will be eager to stem the tide.
Hun, meanwhile, wants to prove it is still the cream of the crop after eight players graduated who helped keep the Raiders the No. 1 team in the area the last two years.
“Definitely, we have a combination of returnees and new players who want to show what they can do,” said Hun’s seventh-year head coach Tom Monfiletto, whose team went 22-4 overall in 2022. “This is an easy group to teach. Our juniors will have bigger roles. The new guys up from JV will get time.”
There will be plenty of room for younger talent to step in, but there will also be seven seniors and one postgrad who figure to play a big part in the Raiders’ season. Outfielder Michael Chiaravallo leads the senior class after hitting nine home runs a year ago. He is joined by classmates Michael Jolly (outfield/ first base/catcher), Michael Smith (first base/catcher), Tre Francis (outfield), Rohan Sheth (right-handed pitcher/outfield), Chase Pintimalli (left-handed
pitcher) and Ryan Murphy (right-handed pitcher), plus former Princeton Day School player Jackson Bailey (right-handed pitcher).
“We’re very excited to open the season with Lawrenceville,” said Monfiletto, whose club was 9-1 in the Mid-Atlantic Prep League last year. “The league is going to be as competitive as ever.”
That’s because the Big Red, who finished second in the MAPL last spring at 8-2, also have an impressive group of upperclassmen who would like to prove they are the best.
L’ville has 10 members of its oldest class, including a pair of postgraduates — catcher/outfielder Michael Boyer from Hopewell Valley and right-handed pitcher Liam O’Hearen from Madison. Catcher Jack Moses, right-handed pitcher/first baseman Shaun McMillan and left-handed pitcher Hugh Devine are among the top seniors with infielder Jackson Sgro, outfielders
Charlie Rossman and Jackson Lee, left-handed pitcher Danny Harlan and righthanded pitcher Will Sabat.
“We have a senior-heavy group. The team, as a whole, has a good amount of experience,” said the Big Red’s sixth-year head coach Steve LaRochelle, whose team went 13-8 overall in 2022. “We played a challenging, nine-game scrimmage schedule to prepare us. I think we have a pretty strong non-conference schedule, including games against half the teams from Philadelphia’s InterAc League, which will test us as the year goes on.”
Hun’s only MAPL loss last season came against Peddie. Erik Treese, who has been head coach of the Falcons for the last 21 years, may not have the lineup he had for that 2022 clash, but he still has his oldest son, Luke, to lead a club with only two other players returning.
The younger Treese, a Haverford College-bound product who will be a center fielder, shortstop or righthanded pitcher depending on where he is needed that day, will be joined by three PGs — Alexey Stout, a shortstop from Christian Brothers Academy; Michael Sarlo, a catcher from Wood-Ridge High; and Caleb Chou-Green, a righthanded pitcher/first baseman/third baseman from San Francisco, Calif. — plus one other senior, second baseman Joe Smith, up from the junior varsity to help guide Peddie’s nine underclassmen.
“The guys have bonded well,” said Erik Treese, whose team was 10-7 last season. “Some may need to fill different roles than they originally thought they would. We’ll need to get a little better every day. If, at the end of the year, we’re playing our best baseball, I’ll be happy.”
The Pennington School, which will join the MAPL next season, did not have as good a baseball season as it would have liked last spring. But seventh-year head coach Steve Kowalski’s Red Hawks figure to improve upon that 7-9 finish with a team which consists of six senior returnees and just as many talented underclassmen.
Infielder Will Bercaw, right-handed pitcher/first baseman Caleb Hibbert, right-handed pitcher/outfielder Gordon Grandbouche, left-handed pitcher/ outfielder Ronan Hwang, right-handed pitcher/outfielder Aidan Petolillo and outfielder Harris Roberts are Pennington’s senior class, which will be depended upon to provide direction as much as num- bers.
“I think last season was a little disappointing, mostly because we had a lot of injuries,” Kowalski said. “This season we have just about everybody back from our pitching staff. We’re just hoping we can put up enough runs to support them.”
Princeton Day School will have a new head coach in Eric Schnepf, a Bridgewater-Raritan grad who played at Tufts and coached at Somerville High. He is looking to help the Panthers, with only three seniors in the mix, begin a turn-around for a squad which went 3-16 a year ago.
Right-handed pitcher/ shortstop Ryan Vandal, first baseman/righthanded pitcher Bram Silva and outfielder John Mazzarisi are the upperclassmen tasked with helping their 14 younger varsity teammates improve before their school joins the Colonial Valley Conference in the fall.
“This is a unique and big opportunity,” Schnepf said. “This season, we’ll be getting a lot of kids comfortable with playing at the varsity level.”