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Beam looking to rebuild Boardman baseball
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By Greg Gulas
First-year head coach Bob Beam heads back to his alma mater hoping to return the program to its glory days of the 1990s when he played for former coach Dave Smercansky.
He later served as an assistant to current Columbiana Clippers head mentor Scott Knox.
“We need to get off to a good start so the players know that we can be successful. We had a great offseason with conditioning and open hitting, but need to get outside now to play some games,” he noted.
With 54 players in the program, the numbers are good, but the real challenge is replacing 11 seniors who led by example. The Spartans were 7-19 a season ago and 3-5 in the Federal League.
Boardman will return two true starters in catcher Dan Popio and Carmen Tarantino.
Tarantino will be moved to shortstop this season.
In addition to Tarantino, eight other seniors will dot the 18-man varsity roster.
They include Joe Markovitch (outfield/pitcher); John Fithian (outfield/pitcher); Mike Calautti (third base); David DiBernardi (second base/outfield/pitcher); Chris D’Apolito (pitcher/outfield); Mark Leone (first base/pitcher); Phil Hall (outfield/pitcher) and Alec Neapolitan (first base/pitcher).
In addition to Popio, the junior class includes Jake Stauffer (pitcher/outfield); Troy Parks (outfield/pitcher); Brian Smith (shortstop/pitcher); Zach Williams (third base/pitcher); Derek Pasquale (second base) and Danny Watkins (outfield/pitcher).
Two sophomores, Nico DiIanni (outfield) and Mike Witte (first base), will also command playing time.