Over the course of his first few weeks at the helm of the Eastchester baseball program, Jesse Waters has seen enough to make him optimistic about this season. But as the head coach is quick to point out, there is always room for improvement. With his team playing .500 baseball through the first six games of the year, Waters is hopeful that the Eagles will start to gel as the season progresses, turning Eastchester into a legitimate playoff threat in the Class A landscape.
Prior to taking over the Eagles’ baseball program this winter, Waters spent the previous 14 years seasons as the head coach at Hastings. He acknowledged that he has some big shoes to fill, following in the footsteps of legendary Eastchester coach Dom Cecere, who passed away just prior to the start of the 2017 campaign.
Cecere served as Eastchester’s head coach for 52 seasons, and counted Waters—who graduated from the high school in 1993—among his legion of former players.
“It’s a bit of a daunting task, obviously, considering that Dom had been here for so long and been so excellent for so long,” Waters told the Review. “And even though we haven’t started this season exactly the way we wanted to, I think we’re going to get better and we’re keeping it together.”
On April 11, the Eagles fell to undefeated league foe Ardsley 8-4. But despite the loss, Waters has seen plenty of positives through his team’s first six games. On April 9, the Eagles took on another undefeated team, Nanuet, and topped the Golden Knights 11-10 in a wild back-and-forth game.
According to Waters, these tough early tests should serve to galvanize the team and get them ready for the road ahead.
“I think it helps to set us up, seeing some adversity,” he said. “[Against] Nanuet, we didn’t get a good start on the mound, but we had [Danny Krippel] pitch four-plus innings in relief and we kept battling and held on to get the win.”
The Eagles had another strong relief appearance against Ardsley, as Troy Merone—who picked up the save against Nanuet—allowed just two runs in five innings out of the bullpen.
Moving forward, Waters is hopeful that he can get a little more length out of his starting pitchers, as the bullpen—while solid—has been taxed.
“We’re going to need to pitch better, we’re going to need to get some more quality starts,” he said. “We’ve only had one pitcher go past five innings so far, which makes it tough to compete.”
Another area of improvement, Waters said, is seeing a bit more consistency from the bottom of the lineup, which has shown flashes.
“We’re pretty confident in our top four or five guys, but getting those contributions from down in the order is going to make a big difference,” he added. “Just getting experience will help, but we can also work on our situational hitting in practice, working on moving runners over, making productive outs.”
The Eagles will be back on the field on April 12, when they again square off against Ardsley. Next Tuesday, the squad will travel to Rye to take on another undefeated league foe in the Garnets.
“I’ve liked the fight that I’ve seen from the team so far,” Waters said. “But against these good teams like Ardsley and Rye, we’re just going to need to do a little something more.”
