Team shakes off winless season
by John Beisser, Sports Writer
The Manville High baseball team’s final record does not reflect the amount of sweat poured, lessons learned, values instilled.
The final ledger indicates that the Mustangs played 19 times and lost 19 times. But first-year head coach Dan Sferrazza could not be prouder of his team. Sferrazza is no pollyanna and he insists that he does not consider himself a glass half-full, cockeyed optimist either.
He burns to win just as much as the next coach and knows what winning and competition are all about, having starred at a proud program at Somerville High before embarking on a college pitching career at Rowan University.
He has too much love and respect for the game to be proud of his team’s final record. His object is to win but it is not his sole objective. Beaten down by the trying season? Sferrazza is counting the days until the first cry of ‘play ball!’ in 2009.
”I’m excited, I really am,” he said. “These kids gave me everything they had, right down to the last game. And we lose 12 seniors who will graduate and move on. And I’m confident they will be successful in their lives. They’re great kids, who fought their hearts out. But we’ve got some talented young guys in the program and we have a summer program in place and I can’t wait to get after it.”
Sferrazza would like his young charges to take part in his four-day a week program that will focus on fundamentals and conditioning. The players will work on their throwing, their fielding and their batting. They will also lift weights several times per week. It’s a plan all successful high school programs have in place and Sferrazza is excited that Manville baseball players will, for the first time, have this opportunity to better themselves.
”I think we laid a good foundation for the future,” he said. “The younger guys know what is expected of them and how we want things to be done around here.”
When he uses the word we, Sferrazza is also speaking about Ed Ferraro, a prideful 2004 Manville High graduate who in his first year at the helm guided the MHS jayvees to their first two wins in several seasons.
”Right to the end my kids worked hard and they never gave up,” Sferrazza said. “We lost our last game 10-1 to Somerville. They played all their top guys and threw their best pitcher because they were going for the best record in the county. We were 10-runned 16-4 the first time we played them and this time we played all seven innings. Joe (Burnett) pitched a pretty good game and if not for a couple of errors, the score would have been much closer.”
Burnett was a junior this season and the strong, sturdy right-handed pitcher/infielder figures to again be one of the cornerstones of the team next season. Sferrazza is also excited about people like shortstop Brendan Nurnberger and outfielder Nick Pankowski, a converted catcher, who will be juniors in 2009.
He sees potential in players such as seniors-to-be Ryan Jankowski and Nick DeSantis, along with a pair of promising rising sophomores, Anthony Fasano and Joeseph Talmagi.
To be sure, the core of seniors, including Anthony Palovick, Dennis Petrone, Angel Ortiz and Aaron Janner, to name a few, will be missed. There’s no question the season-ending shoulder injury suffered by gritty senior Brian Rock had a big impact on the team.
”I’m playing with different combinations in my head. I’m thinking of maybe switching Joe Burnett to first base on days he’s not pitching to make room for Nick DeSantis at third base,” Sferrazza said. “There’s different options I’m thinking about. I know people must think, ‘Jeez, they didn’t win a game, what’s the coach all excited about?’ I’ve got a notebook full of ideas and some things I’d do differently. I can’t wait to get into summer program and for next year to come.”