Ethan Rauch

The weather outside may be chilly, but the promise of warmer days is growing. The seasons’ change feels far off now, but it’s the idealizing return of spring sports that has many student athletes hopeful for their own versions of a prosperous season to come.

Following a 2022 season that saw Ryan McCarty, the first Penn State Abington athlete go on to play professionally, Abington’s baseball team’s newly hired head coach Joe Dimento led the charge into the new 2023 year for the first time. 

Coach Dimento received the official title of head-coach following the departure of former head coach David Miller. Dimento, who has been a member of Abington’s coaching staff since 2018, got his start in coaching following the conclusion of his playing career at Rutgers-Camden some years prior. Dimento told me he got into coaching because “There was a coach in my life that had a great impact on who I wanted to become as a man.” Dimento added “I want to be the guy for these athletes, and for everyone that comes on board. I want to be an impactful force in who they become as young men, and help kind of guide and mold these guys into who I think they can become, whether that’s on the ball field or in the work-force.”

With the news of his ascension to head-coach officially, the team found itself looking to somehow improve on a 2022 season that, by many measures, was a universal success.

The team finished its remarkable 2022 season with an overall record of 33-11, and a UEC conference record, which saw them finishing second only to Penn State Harrisburg, of 17-4. The team, behind the superstar play of Ryan McCarty, led the nation in various statistical categories, such as their home-run, runs, hits, slugging and on-base percentage, doubles, and walks taken per game totals.

Heading into the following year the baseball team appeared to take a step-back, finishing its 2023 campaign with an overall record of 19-21, two games under the .500 mark, while miraculously finishing in 3rd place with a conference record of 13-8. However, the team still received great contributions from players such as Justin Fogel, Josh Baar, Tim Petrucelli, Sean Doherty, and Zach Morales – all of whom received All-Region honors for the 2023 season, as Abington’s official sports site reported this previous May. You can read more about their accolades here.

Even with the way things played out in the 2023 season, Justin Pizzo, member of the baseball team for the past four years and a former writer for The Abington Sun,  believes there’s reason for optimism about the team’s outlook in the coming 2024 season.

“I’m always optimistic to start the year,” Pizzo said. “I always have high expectations, as I think we’re still a really talented group. So, I’d say as far as expectations for 2024, our downfall last year was our pitching staff. In 2024 I’m really excited to watch the revamped pitching staff. I’m really excited to watch what they can do, with a lot of freshman arms coming in and bolstering this pitching staff.”

Coach Dimento preached that part of the equation to have success, not just for himself as a still relatively new head coach, but for the team as a whole, is patience. And that in his first year as the head coach, it was a pivotal point of adjustment he had to work with.

“Patience is key, that was the biggest thing [for me]. You’re not going to get every win back right away, you’re going to go through ups and downs, ebbs and flows,” Dimento relayed. “You’re going to have points in the season where it seems like you’re spinning your wheels, and you’re going to have times when it’s smooth sailing.”

In thinking about the previous couple of season, Justin Pizzo says that even though the team took a step back in 2023 compared to the previous year, it doesn’t necessarily impact how he views the two seasons in comparison.

“I look at [the 2022 season] as a disappointment, because we were so good but we didn’t make it to the world series. That’s the goal every year, you know, we want to win it all,” Pizzo said. “So, we got kicked out in the same round in 2023 [that we did in 2022]. Both years were pretty big let-downs. Obviously, 2022 was more of a fun year, because of the players that we had that ended up graduating and moving on.”

And perhaps in a surprising gesture to some, Pizzo thinks that 2022 was even more of a disappointment than 2023, based on the performance of the team down the stretch.

“It was a disappointment,” Pizzo said, “but I’d venture to say that 2022 was more of a disappointment, because we had such high expectations for ourselves.”

Part of the reason why the team took such a grand step back last year, aside from the fact that their star player Ryan McCarty had gone on to play professional baseball, was the uncertainty surrounding Coach Dimento’s position heading into the season. Dimento was officially hired as the full-time coach in late October of 2022, a time that he considered to be late in the process, which meant that there was some apprehension from players he was personally recruiting for the team prior to then. Parents and children of potential incoming Abington students were worried about the possibility that the man who was recruiting them wouldn’t be there by the coming Spring, a feeling that inevitably left the roster depleted in 2023.

“The recruiting class last year was very light, we didn’t have a ton of numbers,” Dimento said. “I think we only had 24 athletes on the roster last year, which is really light for a 40 game season. That was really the toughest part – not having the numbers to keep guys healthy, to be able to run a full season, run the things you want to do, just how many guys you need to get through a season not just safely, but successfully.”

In Justin Pizzo’s perspective, the key factor for the team’s success this year is going to be the performance of an offense that has lost two of its contributors since the 2023 season’s conclusion, and a pitching staff that largely comprises of up and coming, new arms.

“The core guys have been the same, our offense hasn’t changed. I believe we lost two players on offense, two really big producers on offense at that. But even so, we are still kind of running it back with the same group of guys,” Pizzo said. “Other than the pitching staff, as we’ve got a lot of freshmen on the pitching staff, I haven’t really gotten to know them too much [yet], because they’re off doing their own thing as opposed to the offensive guys who are getting so many swings. But the offense is, to quote my coach here, ‘We’re gonna bang.’ There’s no if’s, and’s, or but’s about it. It’s going to be a potent offense. We just have to lock it down on the pitching side.”

Coach Dimento mirrored Pizzo’s sentiments, emphasizing that the team is already in a better spot because of the amount of new pitching arms they now have to work with.

“Our offense has always been one of the nation’s best, but there’s a whole other side of baseball,” Dimento emphasized. “The pitching side of it. If you’re not equipped to handle a 40 game regular season, keep guys healthy, it’s tough to do that. Last year was tough on a lot of the arms, we had to use guys in situations that were probably not the best for them. It’s something we really addressed this off-season.”

The inclusion of former professional pitchers Vance Worley and Jake Drossner as members of the coaching staff is also something Coach Dimento thinks is going to significantly help the young pitching staff develop further.

“Having those guys who’ve done it at the highest level, for all of these young guys, it kind of allows them to see how professionals go about their business,” Dimento said, speaking of the impact Worley and Drossner can have. “How they go about their stretching routine, their pre-game routine, what it looks like on a day-to-day standpoint. How to keep their arms healthy. It’s been incredible, not just for the pitchers, but for the hitters, too. How to attack certain big league hitters, and how we can apply that to us.”

Ultimately though, while Coach Dimento put a lot of focus on the pitching staff in my discussion with him, Justin Pizzo acknowledges that if the offense doesn’t step it up this year, the team won’t be able to make the progress they’ve sought since 2023 ended.

“We’ve got guys who can hit, it’s all about them just honing it in and taking it a step further this year, as opposed to how they did last year,” Pizzo said. “There’s a couple of guys who had decent years last year, but I’m sure they’re looking to improve and step it up.”

No matter how the season goes, Coach Dimento believes it’s important for the members of the team to represent themselves and the university properly, responsibly, and respectfully. And that in doing so, the players are setting themselves up for success in whatever future endeavor they find themselves partaking in.

“Anytime you see me walking around campus with anybody, and we run into a player of ours, they do exactly that. It goes a long way, in just who they are as young men; a firm handshake and an introduction can go a long way,” Dimento said, “in a business interview, or just really becoming familiar with another person… Just being that kind of guiding force to let these guys know that being respectful, being polite, is going to go a long way outside the baseball field.

“Baseball is going to go on long after me, long after these guys, but success while they’re here is something we’re going to cherish forever.”

Abington’s 2024 baseball season officially begins February 23rd, against Methodist University in Fayetteville, North Carolina. The team’s schedule can be accessed here, and their home games will be played at Alverthorpe Park.