Connecticut Team Of The Week - Amity
May 16, 2019
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Connecticut Team Of The Week - Amity
WOODBRIDGE, Ct. - When you lose three key contributors, including the Gatorade Player of the Year in the state, it makes for a lot of questions the following season.
But Amity has more than held its own and is the Connecticut Prep Baseball Report Team of the Week.
“Losing the 3-4 batters in our order was tough along with a pitcher that won 15 games here, but we’ve had guys stepping in a filling roles,” explained head coach Sal Coppola, “We always feel we can compete with anyone and can be good enough at the end of the year to make a run. Our league prepares us for that. There are not many easy games, everybody beats each other up.”
That is the case for Amity, which picked up one of its biggest wins of the year on Tuesday over Daniel Hand 6-3, before falling to defending state champion Cheshire a night later. Amity had defeated the state’s top-ranked team 1-0 earlier in the season.
“We have quality players that execute, usually make the routine plays and play scrappy,” the 26th-year head coach explained about what the program at Amity puts out every year. “We tend to do the little things well and if we don’t I’m upset.”
Seniors Cole Kuchachik and John McNelis have led the offense at the top of the order.
Shortstop Sebastian Formica is another key player for the Spartans. A Rhode Island sommit, Formica is considered one of the better defensive shortstops in the state according to Coppola, while also batting .300.
John Lumpinski, a 6-3 195-pound Siena commit ranked 289th in the New England senior class, is the ace of the pitching staff at 6-2 with a 1.00 ERA. Senior left-hander Mike Shepa and sophomore righty Jack Ranani have also come up big this season for Amity.
“Pitching is definitely a work in progress,” Coppola admitted. “We’ve got a lot of work to get done before the tournament.
“But I like their work ethic. Our kids are very coachable and they work their butts off, Those three pitchers are quality individuals and work really hard. But we’ve had way too many indoor practices.”
Still, Coppola has high hopes as the season heads down the final stretch of the regular season.
“Guys in this program lift from Oct. 1 to March,” Coppola said. “There’s been lifting, fundraising, team breakfasts … it’s a mini-college. We have a lot of pride in that and in our program.
“We take a lot of pride in our kids that go on to play college and minor-league baseball. That’s a very important part of our program.”
The veteran head coach feels his squad, which is currently 13-6 and ranked ninth in the state, has the potential to make some noise come tournament time.
“When you get to state there are 2-1 and 1-0 games,” Coppola noted. “If our pitching sharpens just a little bit and our defense stays strong, I think we can make a run.”