A little before the high school baseball season was about to begin, Pat Laguerre had the scare of his young life.
The St. Peter’s Prep head baseball coach suffered a heart attack. Those aren’t the kinds of things that happen to healthy men, athletic men who just began their fifth decade on the planet. Laguerre, a former standout athlete at the now-defunct St. Mary’s and basketball player at Jacksonville University, never dreamed he could suffer from heart ailments.
And the timing was just awful, considering the baseball season was about to begin and Laguerre’s Marauders had such high hopes and expectations for the upcoming season.
Laguerre was going to have to rely on his assistant coaches to lead the team while he slowly recovered.
“It really wasn’t hard,” said Laguerre, who had to endure a similar situation two years ago when he tore his Achilles tendon and required reconstructive surgery. “I have a good relationship with my coaches, friendships that I can rely on. They’re good coaches, good friends. So they made being away pretty easy.”
Laguerre relied upon his staff of Dave Weber, Brian Callahan, Joe Vesey and Wilmer Mendez. Weber was a standout at Marist and eventually pitched in the Chicago Cubs organization. Callahan was the former head coach at NJIT. This is a powerful, potent coaching staff, not readily found anywhere.
Laguerre gradually worked his way back to health and back to the Prep coaching box. The Marauders maintained their level of excellence, thanks to the efforts of the assistant coaches, who guided the team while the head man got better.
“This year, the team had a lot of potential,” Laguerre said. “There was a lot of internal competition, so it gave them something to shoot for. We were fortunate to have depth in our pitching. We knew that it was going to be one of our strengths, so we monitored the amount of innings and allowed others to pitch as well to keep everyone fresh as we were going towards the stretch of the season.”
Laguerre knew that there weren’t many teams who could match up with the talented trio of Dan Cooney, Corey Caddle and Antonio Velardi. It’s a three-headed monster of senior right-handers who consistently throw strikes and keep the Marauders in games.
“They all knew ahead of time how they were going to be used,” Laguerre said. “I didn’t fool around with it. When it was their turn to pitch, they pitched. It’s just the way things were going to fall.”
The Marauders marched through the regular season of the Hudson County Interscholastic Athletic League with an unblemished and undefeated record. It enabled the Marauders to gain the top seed in the Ed “Faa” Ford Memorial Hudson County Tournament.
“When you have an undefeated regular season, you’re already good at winning games,” Laguerre said. “We had to be the favorites because of what we did. We were very confident, but we couldn’t look past the first game.”
The Marauders had to make their way past a pesky Weehawken team, then took on defending champion Marist and their ace A.J. Candelario and came away with a 2-0 victory with do-everything Caddle on the hill, to advance to the tourney finale.
Awaiting the Marauders in the final was No. 2-seed Memorial, a program that is almost synonymous for winning county championships under late coach Tony Ferrainolo, who died in 2011 as the all-time leader in coaching victories in New Jersey, a man who guided the Tigers to an unprecedented 14 county titles.
“That’s a program with a lot of pride,” Laguerre said. “They have a rich tradition. I knew that they would be up for the challenge in facing us. I’m glad our kids didn’t take it for granted.”
The Marauders and Tigers played a classic Hudson County Tournament final game last Saturday at Caven Point Cochrane Field, with the Marauders coming away with a 2-1 victory.
Cooney pitched six brilliant innings to earn the win, while the fire-balling Velardi came in for the final inning, striking out two and recording the save.
Cooney also helped his cause by lacing a triple in the fourth inning, eventually scoring on a groundout from Kyle Bowes.
Memorial got a great pitching performance from junior Chris Rey, who was the hard-luck losing pitcher. Rey surrendered just five hits while taking the loss. The Tigers have a very young and talented roster and should be able to make some noise next season.
“I think our experience was the key,” Laguerre said. “The experience won the day. We were able to pull it out. That team had already played us close [Prep won an 8-7 contest on April 17], so we knew that it wasn’t going to be easy.”
The Marauders, ranked No. 3 in the entire state, now have a few days off before facing St. Joseph of Montvale in the NJSIAA Non-Public A North quarterfinals. Incredibly, the Marauders are ranked third in the state – but they’re the No. 3 seed in the state playoffs.
“There’s nothing you can do about it,” said Laguerre, whose team will take a 26-2 record into the state playoffs. “We’re looking forward to it.”
The Marauders already shellacked the Green Knights, 20-1, in the Weehawken Autism Challenge in late April.
“I think we’ve needed this little rest,” Laguerre said. “We had a stretch there where we played five, six games a week. That took its toll a little. We have a chance to exhale a little and get ready for the next goal. Our first goal was to win the league championship. Then there was the county tournament. We patted ourselves on the back for a job well done, but we have to move on. The next goal is the states. We still remember the disappointing feeling we had coming up short in the states, coming so close.”
The Marauders lost twice in the last three years to St. Joseph in the state playoffs, once locking horns with Rob Kaminsky, currently a rising star in the St. Louis Cardinals organization.
So Laguerre recovered in time – again – to enjoy a county title. Two years ago, Laguerre was in a cast. This year, with proper medication and diet, Laguerre was there again to enjoy it – and hopefully many more years to come.
Jim Hague can be reached at OGSMAR@aol.com.