Vinny: Hello and welcome to the Axcess Baseball podcast. I’m your host Vinny Messana. We’re joined here with a special guest Matt Budderman, Head Coach over at Connetquot High School. Just finished up his first year with the Thunderbirds leading them to a post season appearance, another great year for them. Didn’t finish the job, but they had a very young team and they’re looking at a very promising season coming in 2019. Coach, thanks for coming on the podcast. Thank you for your time. I appreciate it.
Coach: My pleasure. Thanks for coming here.
Vinny: So, before we talk about last year, let’s talk a little bit about yourself for our audience that might not be familiar. I’ll. What’s your background with the game of baseball?
Coach: Besides being an absolute love for the New York Yankees? I grew up here, born and raised in Bohemia. I was playing with many of the guys throughout in Ambrosini’s time as well. Had an opportunity to come back after graduating from Plattsburgh State. I didn’t play baseball there, but I did play basketball for a little while, but I came back here and had an opportunity to start coaching at the middle school level. So Coach Ambrosini asked me if I would be willing to come over and coach over at Ronkonkoma middle school. I said, absolutely. I would love to. Actually, the funny story is before I even had that opportunity to someone else was coaching there to begin with, so I couldn’t get my foot in the door yet, so I needed anything with a bat and ball. So I ended up coaching girls’ softball first. I just the love of the game, I absolutely cherish it and love it. And I wanted to eventually get to the varsity level. So first I was at the middle school level. I coached at Ronkonkoma Middle School for a number of years. And then what had happened was I transferred from a school counselor. I am a school counselor, excuse me, but transferred from the high school to Oakdale-Bohemia middle school. And so once I transferred from the high school I then switched coaching from Ronkonkoma middle school to Oakdale-Bohemia middle school. So I coached that both of those schools for a number of years, got to know the community even more, which is great, and got to have a great connection with the kids and then eventually kept on moving up the bracket, had an opportunity when we had JV-9 baseball for them to be the JV coach here. So I did that for a number of years as well. Then after that, an opportunity presented itself to be the JV coach ended up doing that, another fun, great time with the kids, successful seasons all throughout, whether it be from middle school or the JV-9 and then ultimately to the JV. And then finally, now that coach Ambrosini s not here, had the opportunity to put in for the varsity position. And I was grateful to have gotten that. And that’s pretty much it.
Vinny: So similar to the way a Major League organization will promote from within the minor league system from the coaching staff, it was almost the same with you. Were you aware or familiar with some of your players? The ones that are in ninth, 10th, 11th and twelfth grade from when they were younger?
Coach: Yeah, it was really something special. I got choked up a couple of times last year and some of the kids and once that I had that were seniors last year, I coached them since they were in seventh grade. And soI said, I feel bad for you guys because you’ve only had me, I kept on going up. Obviously there’s a tremendous amount of other coaches outside of the district that coach summer leagues and summer ball and fall ball and all that kinds of things. Will have had other coaches, but by the same token in a Connetquot setting, some of those kids, they had me year after year. So it was, it was bittersweet. It was, it was great. I’m speaking about last year, unfortunately just came up a little short of the ultimate goal. One of the ultimate goals. But it was great to be with those kids, with their families and then now to have the opportunity to hopefully come back for this year with all of my returning players. The majority of them. I’m looking forward to a tremendous season.
Vinny: So we’ll get to the season, right after this last question. Just wanted to touch on Coach Ambrosini and the impact he had on you. You mentioned that you played with a lot of the guys that have came through this system then ultimately played at the next level that have had a real impact here. So, for people that have followed Connetquot baseball for years, he’s all they’ve known. How would you talk about the impact that he had on you and also how your style might contrast with his?
Coach: Ironically enough, he also coached football. I coached football as well. I gave up coaching football this year, I coached football for 11 or 12 years. But once I got the Varsity job for baseball, I let go of the coaching of football. So sometimes the mentality of that kinda the rah-rah-rah, let’s-go-get-them, kind of aggressive attitude I would say we have some of that. But also at a certain time I’m a little bit more lax, meaning, you know, communicating wise. So sometimes I’m not so much in-the-face as he might be, but after the years and experience in a winning tradition that he had I can only hope that I can continue the tradition.
Vinny: Absolutely. So we’ll talk about the 2018 season. In my opinion, you guys overachieved just based on the fact that there was a lot of young kids that you relied on and still made a playoff run. A lot of those guys ended up being impact players–Alex Ungar, Matt Brown-Eiring. Talk about how you would evaluate the the season and what you saw from those sophomores and juniors that are now going to be back.
Coach: Absolutely a tremendous amount of talent. With the two names that you just spoken about, but you know, there’s also another tremendous amount of talent out there as well that the names haven’t been presented yet. I know that the ability is there. I’m looking forward to it tremendously. I have a number of kids that are already signed and are going to Division-I schools. Joseph Savino, Derek Yalon and Jared Yalon both going to be committed to Stony Brook and Joey is going to be going to Elon. Not to mention that there are a number of other players that, they might’ve been role players last year, but I’m looking forward to seeing some of these guys continue. And so along with the young guys, the sophomores that did play last year, I do have a tremendous amount of talent in the 11th graders as well. And also my seniors that are all coming back.
Vinny: And let’s talk about Joe Savino for a minute. He’s somebody that really wowed me. I mean, the 73 pitch complete game against Newfield, who was a good team and that coach told me that was basically the worst draw they could have gotten. You take a League 4 team and they end up facing and up-and-coming team like you. So obviously they ran into a rough draw. But talk about Savino what he meant to the team last year. Coming off an incredible season in which he went 6-1, and what he means for you guys this year.
Coach: Tremendous talent. Tremendous arm. Tremendous ability and he keeps getting bigger in more ways than one. Not just the physicality, but the maturity. I’m expecting a tremendous amount from him not only on the field but off the field as well to hold up these players accountable and to do the right thing first and foremost come from me, but after that, he is definitely one of the kids that the entire team looks up to. They know when he has the ball in his hands he presents a tremendous opportunity for us to win. With the talent we faced last year, not only with Newfield, which I give them the utmost respect for. They played a terrific game. They played phenomenal–pitching was great. The coaching staff is excellent and for him to do what he did last year was truly spectacular. And then to get back to the younger guys that contributed as well. When you’re speaking about Alex and Matt, Matty had a shot that was a home run that unfortunately went to another field. And then Alex playing that sound defense at shortstop that was pretty lights out. There was a lot of ground balls that we were taking care of and that was a good team collective win. But moving forward now with Joey for this year the sky’s the limit and he has the supporting cast behind him. He knows all those guys that played with him last year are back this year, so he knows that we were younger last year, which we did have a tremendous amount of seniors that left us last year that were phenomenal kids, great ballplayers, great people, great families. But those kids have moved on. Some of those kids are playing college ball and I wish them all the best. But for Joey to know that he has that whole supporting cast coming back and pretty much almost every single position, it’s a good feeling.
Vinny: Actually took the words out of my mouth with the seniors. I don’t want to forget about them because obviously they had an impact as well. I just mentioned the underclassmen because that’s the the future of the team, but guys like Chris Amato, who was a catcher for the whole season and McGuinness, so if you want give them some love.
Coach: Absolutely. I mean, all of my seniors, I kept a very large roster last year and like I said, many of the kids that I coached from seventh grade on–I’ve seen them develop and I’ve seen them grow and they were in it as a whole entire team mentality and coming together and buying in and working, working as hard as humanly possibly can. Some kids know the amount of time might not be there per game and whatnot, but nothing but respect, class and just a joy to absolutely coach all of them, which was tough. There’s a lot of people looking around and wanting to get in and you do your absolute best, but ultimately at this level, you know, it’s about winning and producing but I have nothing but respect and love for all those guys that have moved on and gone to college and I just wish them nothing but the best.
Vinny: And now last year some of the best games that I covered was your series against Commack. That was spread out over a longer period of time I think because of the rain or whatever it was. There was a couple of weeks in between there, but you had to game when McHugh had the grand slam and then the other game at Baseball Heaven just end on the closest of pitches possible. What are your takeaways from that match up? Obviously you guys are going to have some intense rivalries again, moving forward.
Coach: Absolutely. Again, nothing but respect for the coaching staff over at Commack. The players played their hearts out and that it is an utter war when we’re going at it and you know, in the most respectful way that you can possibly say, but they have tremendous talent. They have a lot of kids coming back, very good coaching staff as well. And for Joe Savino to do what he did against them and specific players that they have that are higher caliber players that are going places for him to shut some people down. You know, it was refreshing to see and it was great. And the one beautiful thing with Joey and with the team, they’ll humble about it. It wasn’t, you know, this person’s going here, this person, they know they can’t, you know, my guys came in, they did their job and that was it. And then to go back to losing a heartbreak on a Grand Slam. I don’t know if that ball has still landed from last year (laughing). He hit that thing–he got all of it. But I have no doubt in my pitching again, you know, the pitchers and the people that I’ve pitched last year that were younger that might have given up a home run or given up this, they’re ready to go and, you know, they’re eager and they’re hungry I can’t wait to get those guys going again. Plus also the fact that we had multiple injuries last year before the season started, so a lot of guys weren’t even 100 percent fresh until three quarters of the way through. So I’m looking forward to see, you know, a healthy, you know, healthy team and just stay with it and keep moving forward.
Vinny: Last question: This might be a little bit tougher to answer but when you have two great pitchers at the top of the rotation like, like you appear to have, I’m sure it seems like a blessing and a curse because those two days you’re very confident in who you have but then there’s also relief pitchers that might feel like they deserve some innings and how do you manage that throughout the year, making sure that guys stay fresh when you have two horses that are going to go six and seven innings per outing?
Coach: Well, fortunately enough, our depth is tremendous. We had a tremendous amount of depth last year, some of the guys were a little bit younger and coming off of injuries and so forth. But they are hungry to come back. And I’m like I said, we might have those two couple horses up front, but I’m very confident with three, four and five. I know it’s not a major league baseball team and it’s not five starters, but that’s the type of depth that we have and you know, Joey and Alex,those are two of the horses, but you know, there still is a tremendous amount that’s behind that. We’ll leave it at that. We’ll leave that quietly and those kids will hopefully shine this year, which I’m expecting them to do and they they know who they are.
Vinny: And lastly, League 2, unbelievable. There was almost five playoff teams come out of it. I believe Northport faltered at the end there and they finished shy with eight or nine wins, but what was it like last year? I know they say it’s a knock-em-down league. Four playoff teams coming out of it. Obviously no pushovers for the most part.
Coach: Not at all. It’s extremely competitive from top-to-bottom. Again, great kids throughout Long Island, Suffolk County, Nassau County, great baseball and I’m just proud to be part of it and I’m happy to have the kids and the community and the school behind me and moving forward and continuing to battle. We did lose one team this year. I believe that CI is now shifting over and we might’ve acquired, I believe it’s Riverhead right now, but I’m really looking forward to all the teams that wish that we’re going to play. Whether it’d be the Commack, Lindenhurst, Northport, Sachem North.
