Pucciarelli lifts Hun to rival wins
By: Justin Feil
The Hun School baseball team has some big-time pitchers and another group of feared hitters.
Sean Pucciarelli isn’t considered either, but the Raiders likely wouldn’t have started 2-0 without the senior.
"If you’re looking at early season MVPs," said Hun head coach Bill McQuade, "he’s one of them."
In the first week of the season, Pucciarelli was asked to do a little of everything, and he delivered. In the season opener against Peddie last Tuesday, he came on in relief of Mike Russo in a one-run game. Pucciarelli, who had plated the first two runs of the season for the Raiders on a third-inning single, preserved Russo’s no-hitter with two perfect innings himself. He struck out two of the final three batters he faced for the 5-4 win.
"I wasn’t really nervous at all," said the right-hander. "I’m not going to overpower anyone with my fastball. I was just trying to hit my spots, change speeds and mix it up. I was able to do that. It worked."
It worked again last Thursday against Lawrenceville when he was called on in relief of Princeton University-bound Matt Welsh. Welsh, who is bouncing back from a shoulder strain, went the first three innings in which Lawrenceville built a 2-0 lead. Pucciarelli surrendered just two hits over the final four innings while striking out seven.
Even bigger, Pucciarelli was credited with breaking up the Brad Raynor’s no-hitter in the top of the seventh inning with a leadoff single. His hit was followed by another by Sean Munley, then a walk to Shane Davis and a Russo double to tie the game before Andrew Baxter singled home the final two runs for a 4-2 victory to give Pucciarelli his first high school pitching victory.
"It felt good," Pucciarelli said. "It felt really good to do it against our two biggest rivals. It’ll feel good if you can go in and throw strikes and get out of jams, no matter who it’s against. It feels even better when it’s Peddie and Lawrenceville. Those are games you circle when the schedule comes out."
Sean Pucciarelli is the Princeton Packet Athlete of the Week.
"He has grown up," said McQuade, whose team beat Hamilton, 6-1, Wednesday to improve to 3-0. "Last year, he came on like gangbusters. He got our Coaches’ Award. He went from someone who we didn’t know if he could be a full-time player to someone we needed out there. He hits to all fields, and with M.L. (Williams) batting first, he’s perfect with that at No. 2."
Pucciarelli credits Hun assistant Dan Kvarta with noticing a pattern in how Raynor was working batters. And once he got his hit, the rest of the lineup was quick to heat up in frigid weather conditions.
"On our team, hitting is really contagious," Pucciarelli said. "Once one guy gets a hit, everyone behind them gets confidence. Once one of us gets a hit, we all start hitting. That’s all it took."
McQuade can only hope that the same thing happens with Hun’s pitching. The Raiders lost expected No. 3 starter David Putman to a dislocated shoulder against Peddie. He could be out anywhere from two weeks to the rest of his junior season. The Raiders are happy to have Pucciarelli to fall back on in that event.
"Me being the coach I am, I never saw that (pitching ability) in him before," McQuade said. "We might have been a little better last year if I had. It wasn’t until the end of the year last year that we got Baxter throwing, and he’s been good.
"I saw Sean pitched a little in the summer for his Legion team and he did well. We knew he could play anywhere. But pitching is a different beast. He has the stuff. He has two and a half or three pitches depending on whether he has his change-up or his curveball or both."
The Raiders came into the season expecting to take advantage of Pucciarelli’s versatility. In their first two games, they already had. After playing shortstop as a late-season call-up sophomore year, he moved to the outfield last year. But he was back in the infield to start the Lawrenceville game.
"He had to start at third against Lawrenceville," McQuade said. "They bunt very well and we had to have someone quick there. He helped take that away.
"He’s such a competitor," he added. "When you’re like that, you don’t go through the highs and lows as much. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him go through those emotions. He’s very steady. I just think he’s an amazing kid and an amazing athlete."
Pucciarelli is learning to adjust to playing wherever necessary, sometimes at a moments notice. And he’s happy to play anywhere on the field.
"It depends who’s pitching," said the Robbinsville resident. "If Mike is on the mound, I’ll play center. If Matt Welsh is on the mound, I play third. If Shane is on the mound, I play left. I’m all over the place.
"I started to like the outfield a lot last year. That’s where I primarily played. Up until then, I had never played the outfield in my life. I like moving around."
He is even the back-up catcher to post-graduate Chris Griffin. But the biggest change this season appears to be the value he will have to the pitching staff. He is looking forward to the challenge.
"The Lawrenceville game, I ended up throwing four innings," Pucciarelli said. "That was more than I expected, but it felt good to work more than one or two innings. Even when I start, my mentality is to throw strikes and trust the guys behind me."
Pucciarelli never expected to throw this many strikes. No one with the Raiders expected him to be that effective this early. Pucciarelli credits it to Griffin and McQuade’s pitching calling.
"In six innings, he has nine strikeouts," McQuade said. "That’s incredible for someone who we don’t normally think of as a pitcher. He would be on some past year’s teams a sure No. 2. He’d be that on many teams."
Pucciarelli figures to just get better as he says it takes him a little to get his arm into shape after basketball season. Pucciarelli also played on the Hun boys’ soccer team last fall. He is hoping to finish up his athletic career on a high note, and after winning a pair of championships in basketball, the baseball team is starting off right.
"It definitely builds our confidence a great deal," Pucciarelli said. "Since I’ve been here, we’ve never been able to put it together at the end of the year. We’ve always had good seasons, but since I’ve been here, we haven’t been able to win any championships. That’s our main goal. When get off to start like this, it adds to our confidence level."
The Raiders are hoping they can keep it up. They won’t do so without the likes of Sean Pucciarelli.
"You couldn’t ask for a better start," McQuade said. "The kids want to win and you’re playing two of your top rivals. He wasn’t expecting to pitch much. To step in against two top rivals and go out and do what he has done, it’s great for him and us."

