by Eric Belyea
Holy Trinity and the rest of the CHSAA are heading into one of the most anticipated seasons it has had in a while. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the world was swept into a different direction, school and all their activities were cancelled, including their sports.
Titans head coach, Dan Luisi is entering his fourth year with the program, he returned home to his alma mater, where he graduated back in 2005. excited about the group of seniors he has this season, since they got to sit under the learning tree of the group of 12 seniors who graduated last year. “Last year we had 12 seniors, that I was able to coach basically since I got to Trinity, and they knew what my expectations were and what I believed the program should be and how it should be ran”, Luisi continued; “with those seniors now graduated, they unfortunately did not get to have their senior year, but that has presented a lot of opportunities for a lot of our new players.”
Within the group of seniors that graduated last year, they a group of three seniors playing local Division-II baseball. Timmy Mott (RHP) and Steven Collica (C/3B) joined current Graduate Student and Holy Trinity alumni, Sean Hogan at Molloy College, while Jordan Ramlogan (MIF) will suit up as a member of the Queens College Knights, all will look to make an impact at the next level.
Coach Luisi is looking towards three seniors this season. Jonathan Morales, who has been a three-year starter for Luisi’s squad, a menace to opposing pitching, and solid defensively over at first base. Nick Inzerillo, player who transferred to Holy Trinity when he was a sophomore, he will be pulling double duty, as he will be in the outfield and will be featured in the rotation as well. Mike Hopkins will be making his long awaited come back, as he was slated to miss all of last season prior to the coronavirus outbreak with an injury. Hopkins is a middle infielder, who will bolster the rotation alongside Inzerillo.
“I am looking for those three guys to really step up and be leaders for a lot of our underclassmen”, explained Luisi. With such a small group of seniors, the Titans will look towards multiple underclassmen to grab the reigns and help lead this team both on and off the field. Coach is putting a lot of responsibility on the group of underclassmen “We’re going to have some underclassmen that have an opportunity to not only get on field experience, maybe ahead of some of their classmates. But also learn and develop, and compete in a much more competitive environment that is varsity baseball in the Catholic League”.
One exciting player to watch is LHP Sadier Vicioso, the hard-throwing southpaw who transferred last year. He has performed extremely well during the travel ball circuit and could be an important cog in their pitching staff.
Long Island Baseball captures the 15U Championship with a 7-6 come-from-behind victory.
Sadier Vicioso fired four hitless innings in relief to record the win pic.twitter.com/uAZQdJT10K
— Axcess Baseball LI (@axcessbaseball) October 14, 2019
They also have some promising 2023 players that can have an impact down the road. Infielder Nicholas Del Vecchio is one player that fits that bill. He can play SS or 2B and has a sweet lefty swing. A few other players are catcher Joey Yovino, Tyler Cook and Sebastian Velasquez. Cook was featured on last year’s ‘Up Next’ series.
8th grader Tyler Cook getting his swings in pic.twitter.com/frOxmMThrC
— Axcess Baseball LI (@axcessbaseball) December 19, 2019
This season is a “prove it” year for a lot of the juniors to show Luisi what he has coming up the pike for 2022, but he is also looking for development, which is expected for each team in the CHSAA this season, Luisi explained; “One thing I can say about the Catholic League and all the coaches associated with it is we put development right at the front of how we do everything. Our success on the field really is a result of how we develop our players and how hard we train our team”, said Luisi, who is looking forward to competing in the always competitive CHSAA after the year hiatus.
Nicholas DelVecchio (Holy Trinity 2023) with a max exit velocity of 85 pic.twitter.com/PaIo99tLsO
— Axcess Baseball LI (@axcessbaseball) December 12, 2020
Coach Luisi’s squad at Holy Trinity is one of the more under the radar teams to keep an eye out for in 2021. A team with a underclassmen heavy roster heading into the warzone that is the CHSAA, with eyes on development and a league title.
