At this time a year ago, the Concord baseball team was gearing up for what it hoped to be a championship campaign. Griffin Gilbert was the clear-cut ace, Kurtis Stadnicki was the stalwart behind the plate, and both pitcher Jacob Knowles and leadoff hitter Ryan Tessier were major pieces to a team in contention.
Without them, the Tide face a lot of unknowns this spring.
“The group we lost last year was obviously extremely talented from top to bottom,” Concord baseball coach Scott Owen said. “You had Tessier leading off the lineup and he’s at NEC this year. Knowles is at Wentworth, Griffin is at Division I Fairleigh Dickinson and Kurtis is pretty much the starting catcher at Merrimack.
“These kids weren’t just good high school ballplayers, they could play at the next level, too,” Owen said. “You can’t really replace those kids, you just hope the guys coming in saw what those kids did to get to where they needed to be.”
Concord finished off last season with a 16-5 record, making some noise in the Division I tournament before bowing out to Bedford, 1-0, in the semifinals on a walk-off single from Grant Lavigne – the No. 42 overall pick in the 2018 MLB Draft.
The Tide only return three starters this spring, but do bring back seven players with varsity experience and feature 13 seniors on the roster as the season-opener against Windham on Monday nears.
“Obviously our offense I would have to say is our big question mark,” Owen said. “Our pitching is good. I wouldn’t say we have any one dominant pitcher, but we have good guys who are going to throw strikes and I think we’re going to play some good defense.”
Without the same punch offensively, it all starts on the mound for the Tide in 2019 where seniors Adrian Kennedy, Eric Sullivan, Sean McDonough and Ryan Merchant are expected to eat up most of the innings.
Last year the foursome combined to toss 70 innings with an 8-2 record. Sullivan threw 27 ⅔ of those innings, racking up 28 strikeouts with a 4.30 ERA, while Kennedy went 2-0 over 14 ⅓ innings with 15 strikeouts.
McDonough may have been the most impressive, going 4-1 in 19 ⅓ innings with a 3.62 ERA and one save. Merchant was effective in limited time, striking out 9 batters in 5 ⅔ innings.
Returning senior shortstop Zach Miles is expected to work as the closer while the likes of junior Kyle Hill, seniors Andrew Champagne, Chase Langevin, Tommy Duhaime, Tyler Bruns, John Ahlfeld and sophomore Trevor Smith could all see time on the mound over the course of the season.
“We’re trying to rotate who starts and give guys the opportunity to see how they pitch as a starter or a reliever and see how it all fits,” Owen said. “I certainly don’t think we have it all figured out yet just based on the fact that we haven’t been outside a ton, but I’ve learned in my experience that this stuff kind of all takes care of itself in time.”
While there are question marks in the lineup, Miles, Kennedy and Sullivan don’t fall under that category. All three are coming off seasons in which they hit over .300 and are expected to be the table-setters at the top of the batting order for the Tide this year.
Miles will hit leadoff after batting .314 with 17 RBI and 22 runs scored a season ago. Kennedy hit .326, drove in seven runs and scored 14 times while Sullivan was a hard out all season with a .394 average, 16 RBI and 15 runs.
“Certainly we have three guys that can fill out the first three spots in the lineup and do it pretty well,” Owen said. “To have kids of that caliber come back is obviously very helpful. Last year they didn’t need to carry us, they were supplemental players. Now, they need to be the guys that carry us.”
Behind them is where the concern hit – not because the rest of the roster lacks talent, it’s just a matter of doing it for the first time at the varsity level in Division I.
With Stadnicki gone, Smith and senior Trevor Upton will step up to split catching duties. Sophomore Nate Vandersea can plug in at any middle infield spot and there’s a bevy of faces – old and new – that will likely be called on for more at-bats, including Hill, Duhaime, Cam Thompson, Ronan McGonagle and Efli Shtino.
“How consistently they can hit Division I pitching day in, day out is going to be key,” Owen said. “I’m encouraged with how things are going. I would say it’s the piece we need to make the most improvement on, but the kids are working hard and hopefully we’ll be able to translate that into scoring some runs.”
As of now, the Tide are scheduled to open the season at Windham before returning to Concord for the home opener against Alvirne at Memorial Field on April 10. The Tide also get an early semifinal rematch against Bedford on April 12.
Windham, along with Portsmouth and Goffstown, were added to an already deep Division I this season.
“Bedford and Exeter are in the reload category as opposed to the rebuild,” Owen said. “Both teams are going to be very good. Pinkerton and Bishop Guertin return a lot of kids and we’re adding Goffstown, Windham and Portsmouth – three of the top four teams in Division II – and they all have players who can play the game at a very good level.”
(Jay McAree can be reached at 369-3371, jmcaree@cmonitor.com or on Twitter @JayMcAree.)