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2020 MA Spring Team Preview - Phillips Andover

ANDOVER, Ma. - With pitching depth others can only dream about, expectations are extremely high at Phillips Academy Andover this season.

“We have five number ones,” head coach Kevin Graber said about a staff that currently has three pitchers throwing 90-plus. “We’ve had deep pitching staffs before but this is unchartered territory.”

Senior Griffin Green, a Virginia Tech commit ranked 15th in the New England 2020 class, is a newcomer to the program as a postgraduate from Chelmsford. The 6-4 right-hander along with junior Matt Sapienza and freshman Thomas White have all hit 90 on the gun. Sapienza, who was 1-0 with a 0.58 ERA in 11.1 innings last season, is a righty rated 25th in the 2021 class while White, a left-hander, is the top-ranked 2023 in the country 

A pair of two-way players in junior left-handers Jonathan Santucci and LJ Keevan bring more depth on the mound. Santucci, a center fielder and Duke commit rated eighth in the 2021 New England class, hit .340 with 15 RBIs a year ago while allowing one earned run in seven innings on the hill with 11 strikeouts. Keevan, an outfielder ranked 32nd in his class, batted .289 while also tossing 27.1 innings with a 0.77 ERA.

“The strength this year is pitching,” related Graber, whose 2019 staff set a school record a year ago with a 0.64 team ERA, with opponents batting just .185. “This is as much depth as you can hope to have.”

But there is a lot more to a program that has finished number one in the final ratings of the New England Baseball Journal Coaches poll each of the last two years.

“We have 10 players in our 11th-grade class that were on our team last year, four that played as ninth graders,” Graber noted. “We have depth throughout our roster. Everyone can play, but we’ve got a lot of arms to work and keep happy. It’s a fun challenge as a coach.”

The trio of Jackson Emus, Andrew Ciufo and Tristan Latham must be replaced from a team that started 14-0 last year before losing the regular-season finale to Dexter and the first game of the tournament to the same squad by a 2-0 score.

Emus, now playing at Princeton, led the Big Blue in innings pitched (32.1), wins (4-1 record) and games started (four) with a .0.218 ERA while also batting .358 with 14 RBIs. Ciufo, the starting shortstop at Georgetown this year, led Andover in batting with a .438 average last season while Latham, currently the starting catcher for Pomona College, hit.311 a year ago.

“The core of that team was those 10th-graders,” pointed out Graber, an 11th-year head coach who has an 85-16 record since 2014. “They were happy to be there last year, but now with more experience we have more of a grind-it-out kind of club. Last year there were a lot of wide eyes.”

Junior Jack Penney, a Notre Dame commit ranked sixth in the New England 2021 class, returns to the middle infield after hitting .368 with 15 runs scored last season. Newcomer Tyler Cox, a Dartmouth commit, will join Penney in the middle infield as well as at the top of the order.

Senior Lucas Stowe is another college commit back. A fourth-year starting outfielder who hit .326 with 17 runs scored a year ago, Stowe is a Trinity College signee.

Jacob Lapp, a right-hander who threw 13 innings with a 3-0 record and 1.07 ERA in 2019, is another returnee on the squad along with Peter Ling, a utility player with nine stolen bases a year ago.

“Our biggest concern is we’re young behind the plate,” Graber said. “Ben Carbo and Tommy MCAndrews are going to catch. This will be their first time getting varsity innings and they’ve got to step up.”

Jack Pelfrey, a first baseman who hit .333 in limited action a year ago, is another being counted on by Graber, who admits to being “cautiously optimistic” coming off of last year’s 14-2 season.

“I coached at Amherst College before I came here and this is similar,” said Graber, who has an overall record of 139-56-1 with Central New England Prep Championships in 2012, 2013, 2016 and 2018. “We have exceptional students that had straight-As before coming here. They were taking courses with college professors, so we have really smart kids. Everything we do in general as coaches, they will challenge it and ask us questions. We’re able to throw everything at them.”