By Justin Feil, Packet Media Group
Eric Eden had high hopes for the Hillsborough Legion baseball team this summer based on his previous experience working with that group.
After concluding the regular season in second place in the Pyramid Baseball League, Eden is even more convinced of their potential going forward.
“We’re young, we’re very young,” said Eden, the Legion manager and also head coach at Hillsborough High School. “It’s awesome. It’s a tight-knit group. They’re very coachable and play the game well. They work hard and do things the right way. It’s very exciting to have these guys for multiple years.”
Hillsborough wrapped up the regular season with a 10-6 loss to Pyramid champion Flemington, a team that has several players from college. Hillsborough has five players who will be seniors in high school, seven who are juniors and a pair of sophomores. Experience makes a difference.
“They have a good team,” Eden said of Flemington. “They have a bunch of guys that came back from college. They have guys from Queens College and Mercer County and Moravian and Muhlenberg. We’re 12-4 and three of our losses are to them. We played them to 3-1, 4-2 and today 10-6 losses. I’m happy with the guys. We battled back. We were down 10-0 and battled back and just ran out of innings. They’re playing well.”
Eden likes the progress that he has seen in his own team. Eden coached them a few years ago when Hillsborough Baseball League asked him to volunteer. They have since matured and comprised mostly the HHS junior varsity, with a few players making varsity. Next year, he expects many of them to have the chance to help at the varsity level.
“It’s one of those groups like the year we won counties with that group that I had when they were freshmen and sophomores coming up,” Eden said. “I’ve been around them so I have a good relationship and good repertoire with them. It’s exciting. You look forward to coming to the field every day to work with them.
“As far as expectations, knowing we had a lot of young guys and lost a lot of seniors. That’s why I’m coaching the summer. I want to be very hands on with this group, really work with them every day and be able to be with them three or four times a week and get them to do what we’re doing in the program.”
“Expectations coming in were to go out there and treat it like we’re getting our scrimmages in and get our work in and try to show the players and teach them the game and show them how we do things and be hands on and show the guys what we want. They’re buying in and executing and doing the things we’re teaching.”
The Legion squad includes: Brandon Beck, Chris Coutts, Harrison Coutts, Vince Gambardella, Ryan Joels, Matt Kuc, Andrew Lagerman, Matt LaSala, Alec Lee, Nick Melfi, Lucas Norfleet, Chris Scala, Mike Shokoff, Mike Steeneck, Zach Tynan, Ryan Watson and Kyle Wengryn.
The players bring a mix of talents that combined have enabled them to compete against older, more experienced players. They have been willing to learn to meet the competition.
“It’s nice to have guys for multiple years and they’re buying in and working their tails off,” Eden said. “I could ask them to stand on their head, and they’d look at me weird, but they’d try to do it.”
HHS will need someone to fill the holes left by the graduation of eight position players and three strong pitchers. The Legion group has some solid candidates to step up.
“It’s a full rebuilding year,” Eden said. “With that being said, we definitely expect these guys to come in and compete and do well. I definitely have high expectations and I have a lot of confidence in this group coming in. There will be a lot of competition this year coming out. There are a lot of spots open. That’s a good thing. You want that competition in the program.”
Eden has seen encouraging development during the Legion season. The players are putting the lessons to work, particularly with situational hitting and pitching.
“Our hitting has been phenomenal,” Eden said. “We’re batting just a little under .400 as a team. Our pitching has always been dominant in a couple years past. We might have batted around .260 or .270 as a team. With them coming up and being able to be hands on with them when they were young and having them buy in to our approach at the plate, our situational hitting and timely hitting has been outstanding.
“We’re making other teams pay for their mistakes instead of leaving guys on. If they put guys on, or make an error, we make them pay for it rather than just leaving those guys out there.”
The pitchers also are being stingy, so it doesn’t take a lot of runs for the Legion team to be successful.
The staff is led by Brandon Beck, who saw plenty of action on varsity last year as a junior.
“Brandon Beck has been absolutely phenomenal,” Eden said. “He is one of our leaders on the team. He’s been throwing outstanding. He keeps us in every game. He’s had some dominant performances, even against Flemington. He’s really done well and shut them down.”
Behind him is a fleet of arms gearing up to be contributors next spring. They have used the Legion team to jump to the next level.
“Brandon Beck is definitely leading the staff now, but Nick Melfi is doing an outstanding job,” Eden said.
“He lettered last year, he had 10 innings of relief, and he threw well at the end of the season. In the county game against Bridgewater, he came in and did phenomenal. Nick Melfi is doing well, Ryan Joels. Chris and Harrison Coutts, they’re both doing extremely well. They’re doing great.
“It’s a lot of young arms and inexperienced arms, but they’re learning how to pitch and manage the game.
It’s nice when we play guys like Flemington and North Warren, who have some of those older guys and more experienced guys because when they make mistakes, they make them pay for those mistakes. We leave a ball over the plate (Tuesday) and we gave up a three-run shot. It’s good. They’re learning how to pitch. They have to locate and hit their spots. They have to mix it up. They’re learning as we go, and you’re seeing the adjustments being made.”
There will be more adjustments to be made once next spring comes around, but the Pyramid League is worthwhile as a stepping stone for the up-and-coming varsity players. It helps them prepare for a challenging high school lineup.
“In the summer, we’re not seeing the same competition we see during the high school season,” Eden said.
“With our conference and our schedule, we don’t see any bad teams. I think last year eight of our games were against top-20 teams. In our conference, I think we had three ranked in the top 20, including us at one point. I think the expectations are we’re going to go out there and compete. I expect us to do well. We expect to win, but at the same time I want these guys to get that experience and go out there and compete.
That’s the main thing — buy into what we’re doing and control what we can control.”
They will get a look at more good competition at the Legion level in the week ahead. By virtue of their second-place finish in the Pyramid League, they have the opportunity to play in the district tournament, most likely at Union, though that will be determined tonight. Eden is looking at the districts as an extended chance to grow further.
“Having those guys get that experience and see better competition and watching them compete, that’s important,” he said. “That’s the thing, just competing and controlling what we can control. We tell them when you’re at the plate, put a good swing on it and see what happens from there. Sometimes you can’t control it and it’s at a guy and they make the play or you just miss the ball and that happens. You control what you can control. You go out and execute and get reps in.
“If we win and we continue to excel, to me that’s a bonus. We obviously want to go out and win every game, but at the same time it’s about building the program, having these guys buy in and do what we’re doing in the program and continuing to teach the game and have them excel. When they come into the high school season, we want to have them prepared and know what to expect, attitude and mindset and what we’re doing here.”
For some of the players, it means learning how to deal with failure. Even the top players in baseball fail more often at bat than they succeed. Learning to get past it and make the next play is vital to developing into a more mature player.
“You have to be able to move on, forget it and have a short memory,” Eden sad. “Move it out and keep going. That’s going to come with experience. Once they get that experience, and get those reps, they’re going to be perfectly fine. And we’re there. I’m very happy with the maturity and growth and these guys sticking to the process.”
The Hillsborough Legion can take confidence into the districts after coming out of a top-heavy Pyramid League that pushed them. It has them ready for a challenge from other league competitors.
“Seeing Flemington and North Warren, playing those guys, I think we’re going to be perfectly fine,” Eden said. “With these guys it’s limiting the mistakes. It’s that inexperience sometimes and that mindset that sometimes gets in the way.”
Hillsborough expects to open district tournament play Saturday. Win or lose, they will be gaining valuable experience and continuing to progress toward being varsity players for next year’s HHS squad.
They have shown this summer that they have the ability to compete and the make-up to be a successful team.
“There are a lot of positives with these guys seeing the growth and confidence and how they play with each other as a team and how they pick each other,” Eden said. “We have 18 guys on our roster, so not everyone can play all the time but we’ve been trying to get the guys their reps. Just watching when we take a guy out and see how the pick each other up, they support that other player. It’s a really tight knit team. They play well as a team. That’s a big part of it.”
