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American Legion post sponsors students to attend Boys State

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Rain over the weekend as temperatures remain mild

<p>In his 43 years of coaching college baseball at Wilkes and King&#8217;s, there&#8217;s not one photo of Jerry Bavitz.</p><p>No head shots, no action photos, not even an inadvertent Snapchat.</p><p>A testament to both his low profile and humbleness, the current King&#8217;s pitching coach has been a thorn to shutterbugs and opposing hitters alike for five decades.</p><p>Now in his fourth year with the Monarchs, Bavitz is leading a King&#8217;s pitching staff that features three all-conference hurlers to the MAC Freedom Conference championships this weekend as the third seed.</p><p>The Monarchs will open the double-elimination tournament against No. 2 Misericordia at 7:30 p.m. Friday at Owls Field near Reading.</p><p>&#8220;To be honest, he&#8217;s made me a better coach and person,&#8221; King&#8217;s head coach Jerry Greeley said. &#8220;Our players love him. He&#8217;s very organized and very thorough. He&#8217;s driven the team with his knowledge and demeanor. Coach Bavitz makes his players better. It&#8217;s how athletics should be coached.&#8221;</p><p>Bavitz was part of the Wilkes staff for 39 years, including one four-year stint as the head from 1988-91. A former four-year pitching standout with the Colonels, he carried his alma mater to three consecutive NCAA regional playoff appearances from 1976-78, an NCAA College World Series in 1976 and MAC championships in 1977 and 1994.</p><p>Eight of his former pitchers played professionally, including former Atlanta Braves reliever Kevin Gryboski.</p><p>He was formerly an athletic director, math teacher, and football and baseball coach at Nanticoke.</p><p>&#8220;He was probably the smartest coach I&#8217;ve ever played for &#8211; bar none,&#8221; former Hanover Area and Wilkes pitcher Mark Youngblood said. &#8220;Because he was a teacher, he was able to explain the game better than anyone I ever came across. Jerry has one of the smartest baseball minds. He has an innate ability to read the game.&#8221;</p><p>All three of his All-Freedom pitchers have local ties. Hanover Area grad John Wickiser, a junior, is a first-team relief pitcher with a 6-2 record, three saves and 3.20 ERA. Junior Nick Deno, another former Hawkeye, was an honorable mention selection with a 5-4 record and a 4.13 ERA. Deno was fourth in the Freedom with 40 strikeouts in 56.2 innings.</p><p>&#8220;I think the guys are really hard workers at practice and when they get into the game,&#8221; Bavitz said. &#8220;The team has played fantastic defense this year behind them. &#8230; You&#8217;re just happy the guys are able to get there and hopefully they will do well.&#8221;</p><p>Bavitz helped turn sophomore Chris Lupole, a Wyoming Valley West graduate that had never pitched a full season in high school or college, into an Honorable Mention All-Freedom pitcher from the bullpen. Lupole posted a team-low 2.18 ERA with an 8.7 K/9 ratio. Coming off of an injury last year, Lupole&#8217;s transition to the mound was aided by the tenured pitching coach.</p><p>&#8220;I played shortstop for most of my career,&#8221; Lupole said. &#8220;Maintaining my arm was something that I never had to work with in the day-in-day-out grind of a position player. With my injury, he had me on a program for endurance with running, changes in work-out routines and all of that.&#8221;</p><p>Current and former players both give credence to Bavitz&#8217;s exceptional mind. Youngblood said the veteran coach was a &#8220;step ahead of every other coach&#8221; with scouting and analyzing players, even before technology changed the perception of the game.</p><p>Prior to games, he would scout opposing hitters during batting practice, finding flaws to relay to his pitching staff. Bavitz would watch batting practice of teams from as far away as Minnesota during spring training trips and, without referencing any handwritten notes, tell his pitchers to pitch away to certain hitters.</p><p>&#8220;When we were at Florida, he would be a spy,&#8221; Youngblood said. &#8220;He would be scoping out other hitters without writing anything down. Then he&#8217;d be able to correlate that into a scouting report.&#8221;</p><p>Now a U.S. Secret Service supervisor, Youngblood notes that Bavitz &#8220;helped me with my job now. He taught me how to be there but not be there.&#8221;</p><p>Lupole added that Bavitz references opposing batters&#8217; statistics off the top of his head for any opponent.</p><p>With a long season and inclement weather shifting game starts on a regular basis, Deno credits his coach for keeping the staff&#8217;s arms fresh.</p><p>&#8220;Day in and day out, he&#8217;s making sure we need to do what we need to do to stay healthy,&#8221; he said. &#8220;Whether he gives us the option to long toss or bullpen or running, he keeps our arms healthy.&#8221;</p><p>King&#8217;s looks to unseat Misericordia&#8217;s six-year run of Freedom championships and capture its first title since 2006. DeSales is the top seed in the tournament, and Manhattanville is No. 4. The Monarchs (20-16) won their series over the Valiants and took one of three games against the Bulldogs and Cougars.</p><p>&#8220;Looking at it from a pitching standpoint, we are in a great spot,&#8221; Deno said. &#8220;Coach Bavitz did everything he had to do to get us ready for us for this weekend. We need to take the stress off our fielders and keep our hitters in the game. Our pitchers need to keep pounding the zone like they have been.&#8221;</p><p>Miserciordia (28-12) is amid a trying season by its standards after dealing with weather, compressed schedules and injuries. Tyler Holzapfel was the Freedom Rookie of the Year after batting .359 from first base. The Monarchs will possibly face Freedom Pitcher of the Year Tim Burek and his 8-3 record and 62 strikeouts on the hill.</p><p>&#8220;This tournament is a crapshoot,&#8221; Misericordia coach Pete Egbert said. &#8220;Any of the four teams can win. It is whoever gets hot, whoever plays fundamental baseball will come out on top.&#8221;</p><p><ins>For other sports stories, <a href="https://www.timesleader.com/category/sports" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">click here</a>.</ins></p><style>
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<div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta><p>By Jay Monahan</p><p>For Times Leader</p></bylineMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><factboxMeta><p style="text-align: center;"><strong>IF YOU GO&#8230;</p><p><strong>MAC Freedom Conference championships</strong></p><p><strong>Friday</p><p><strong>Owls Field at Ted Palka Park</strong></p><p>No. 2 Misericordia vs. No. 3 King&#8217;s, 7:30 p.m.</p></factboxMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><shirttailMeta><p>Reach Times Leader sports at 570-829-7143 or on Twitter @TLsports</p></shirttailMeta></div>

King’s coach Jerry Bavitz quietly guiding talented pitching squad