Joey Lancellotti (center) of PC celebrating with teammate Matt Gorman (right) during the PAISAA tournament semifinals against SCH. (Photo by Jonathan Vander Lugt)

by Jonathan Vander Lugt

The 2017 baseball season represented quite a run for Penn Charter baseball.

“This has been a season for the ages,” senior shortstop Adam Holland said.

Often, when teenagers make statements like that, it’s hyperbole. They’re young, don’t have a lot of experiences yet. Everything is so fresh, new, and strong (young love, anyone?).

This time through, he’s correct.

“I’ve been in this game for 35 years of my life, and I don’t think I’ve been around a better group of guys,” said Penn Charter head coach Dave Miller. “It took us a couple of years to figure out where we were going, but this year, they made it special.”

After a loss in Saturday’s Pennsylvania Independent Schools Athletic Association (PAISAA) Tournament semifinal to Springside Chestnut Hill, the Quakers ended the season with a 25-2 record, sole possession of the 2017 Inter-Ac crown, and a whole lot of memories.

“It’s hard to look at the field and know that it’s going to be the last time I’m on the field with these guys,” said Joe Lancellotti, the senior transplant from Archbishop Wood. Lancellotti, after spending his first season of varsity baseball playing for PC and next three at Wood, came back for his senior year, bookending his career in East Falls.

“For me personally, I didn’t know what to expect—I had a couple of good friends, but there were a lot of kids I had never played with,” he said. “Going from that uncertainty, to seeing everybody hugging and saying goodbye, it’s mind-blowing to think that you can get this close to a team.”

Lancellotti was undoubtedly the star of the Penn Charter show. He finished the year with a .487 batting average and 10 home runs—one every 7.8 at-bats. For reference, Mark McGwire’s home-run-to-at-bat ratio hovered around eight when, in the late 90s, he was mashing and breaking records.

Off the mound, Lancellotti led the Quakers in innings pitched (46.2) and somehow only allowed four earned runs. He had 85 strikeouts—good for 46.7 percent of the batters he faced. Peak Pedro Martinez has the MLB starting pitcher record for strikeout percentage—37.5.

He was a high school version of Mark McGwire at the plate and Pedro Martinez off the mound. In other words, he was unreal.

“He was the missing link,” Miller said. “That’s the best high school pitching season I’ve ever seen. The only one to come through Penn Charter like that was Mark Gubicza. This year, Joey was better.”

“This is just a piece of his baseball future. It’s only going to get better for him,” Miller said. “Whether it’s at North Carolina or in the draft, he’s going to see big-time baseball.”

Lancellotti is receiving MLB buzz, which should come as a surprise to no one. Miller, based on his experience with the pro game, thinks he’ll end up in the top five rounds.

The issue—to anyone who’s seen Lancellotti and is incredulous that his mid-90s heater and wipeout breaking ball won’t propel him higher on draft boards—is that he’s relatively short. He’s about six feet tall (maybe a hair less) and features a delivery with a lot of drop-and-drive that will be tough to repeat late in games.

Nonetheless, “I hope teams see what I see,” Miller said. “He’s got a six-foot-eight mental stature. He has the ‘it’ factor. I couldn’t be more proud to have coached him.”

Against Springside Chestnut Hill, Lancellotti pitched the final frame in a 9-5 loss. Despite being on full rest, Brendan Cellucci started.

Does Miller regret the decision?

“Yes, I do,” he said. “Did I look past Springside Chestnut Hill to Malvern?”

“Yeah, I did,” he went on. “I’m 1-9 against them. That’s a mistake that I made. In hindsight, Joey should have started. We had to get past SCH and worry about the rest—that’s my mistake.”

That’s no slight to Cellucci—who has MLB prospects of his own as well as a commitment to Division-I Tulane—but when you’re in an elimination game and have an opportunity to start the league MVP who’s overpowered everybody that he’s faced, you take it and worry about the rest later.

“It hurts now, but when they come back to their high school reunions, they’ll remember this season and the 25 wins,” Miller said. “These kids left it all on the field. They could have packed it in when we went down 9-3 but they kept fighting.”

The Quakers did, and though they came up short, it was still a season—like Holland said—for the ages.

“This year, we had everything—on the field and off,” Holland said. “It was a special year. Ask any of the guys. They’ll tell you.”

“We lost a game early in the season against SCH, and in the Inter-Ac there’s no playoffs,” Lancellotti said. “The league title goes to the team with the most wins.”

“After an early loss,” he continued, “it’s easy to get your head down and mope about it, but we came to practice the next day and said it was the last loss of our season.”

Until Saturday, it was.

“We won out in the Inter-Ac,” Lancellotti said. “That, to me, was so impressive. We could’ve gotten down on ourselves, but not one kid did.”