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Local baseball team wins Akron tourney
(by Tony Lange - July 21, 2011)
Local baseball team wins Akron tourney
By TONY LANGE
After the spring season ends and school is out of session, many high school baseball players split in different directions for summer ball. The Solon Comets, however, have a core group of rising seniors who stuck together and continued to gel on the Northern Ohio Tribe 18U travel team.
During the 2011 high school season, the Comets ended their playoff run in perhaps a shocking 11-10 loss to Medina in a Division I district championship matchup. The Comets gave up nine runs in the bottom of the seventh inning to blow their eight-run lead.
With seven of the 14 juniors and one senior from the 2011 Solon varsity roster joining the Northern Ohio Tribe, a Comet brotherhood, joined by three Greenmen from Aurora, the team has been traveling the Midwest and competing in weekend tournaments during the past two months.
One of the highlights from the Tribe's season was the 32-team Freedom Classic, which was held in Akron July 1 through 4. With 32 teams, it's the largest baseball tournament in Northeast Ohio. Winning all six of its games, the Tribe took home this year's title.
The Northern Ohio Tribe, which is primarily made up of 17-year-olds, has faced older and wide-ranged competition all summer long, head coach Gib Pallay said.
"We're talking about a city baseball team primarily from one school going up against competition that's the best of the best from different schools piled onto one team," Pallay said. "To compete at a level that high and to accomplish what they've accomplished, especially winning the Freedom Classic tournament, was huge."
In the Freedom Classic, there were eight pools of four teams with each team having to win its pool to move onto an eight-team, single-elimination playoff. The playoff seeds were based on point differentials during pool play. Seeded No. 3, the Tribe beat North Canton, Massillon and Nordonia en route to its 6-1 championship victory over Steve's Sports, a team the Tribe had not beaten before.
During the tournament, the Tribe used five pitchers in six games, including rising Solon seniors Drew Stankiewicz, Caleb Pallay and Danny Sutyak, Solon graduate Eric Esborn and Garrett Gable from Aurora.
Leading the offense was another Solon rising senior, Jesse Circelli, who batted 15 of 19. A two-year starter for the Comets, Circelli won the best hitter award for the Comets in 2011.
The Freedom Classic was one of the best tournaments from any summer that the team has been together, Circelli said.
"Our order, from top to bottom, we just couldn't stop hitting," he said. "We would get clutch timely hits. It was a 100 percent team effort. Our pitching was on. We went 6-0. We didn't lose a game."
Other rising seniors from Solon included left fielder Bryce Littell, right fielder Michael Dunn and second baseman Kevin Cegelka.
As a team that doesn't select players from a wide area, the Northern Ohio Tribe doesn't have anybody humongous on the team that can hit a home run every game, Caleb Pallay said. Therefore, they have to play together as a team to win games in their summer tournaments, he said.
"The Freedom Classic was the tournament that we all came together as a team and as a family," the younger Pallay said. "Before that, if we didn't play together, we played poorly. We knew that we had to play together and as a family if we wanted to win. The teams we played were all-stars, and here we are as a city team."
Coach Pallay said he is a big fan and believer in chemistry. Good chemistry and team bonding equal success, and his philosophy is that any team can win at any time, no matter how much talent one team has over another, he said.
"That's just how baseball is," the elder Pallay said. "Local tournaments, smaller tournaments don't really attract the level of competition, and one of the things I noticed with these boys is they play up to their competition. So, if I'm playing mediocre, average teams, they're going to play mediocre and average."
Coach Pallay also said traveling to the most competitive summer tournaments gives his players a chance to be scouted by college coaches, and it is his hope that he provides each player on the Northern Ohio Tribe the opportunity to play at the next level.
"We talked a lot to the boys this year in how to handle themselves on and off the field," the elder Pallay said. "We tried to give the experience necessary and the knowledge necessary of what these coaches are going to be looking at. It's not only what you're doing on the field, because they can always help you enhance your skills, but you can't teach a personality, you can't teach work ethic."
Although he has a son on the team, coach Pallay said he considers all 11 of his players sons and has volunteered his past 14 summers to coaching this group of boys, because it's something his father did for him.
The younger Pallay said it's the best bonding time a father and a son can have, and he wouldn't trade it for anything.
"Whereas you hear of a dad taking his son to a baseball game, it's like that every weekend, but you get to play for him, and he gets to help you along the way," the younger Pallay said. "I mean, it's probably been the best experience of my life playing for my dad."
There are four other father-son relationships on the team with Joe Circelli, Bob Littell and Ted Dunn, of Solon, as well as Glenn Levan, of Aurora, acting as assistant coaches for their sons' team.
Traveling with friends and fathers to play teams from Michigan, Indiana, West Virginia and all across Ohio creates an experience players cannot get during the high school season, the younger Circelli said.
"I love it. It's fun. Especially because we all grew up together, we're all on the same team in the summer and with school ball. It's just a blast," he said. "We win, and we go out, and it's just a blast. We see teams from all over the place, like Florida, Canada, Brazil. It's just awesome traveling to do something you love so much and that you're so passionate for, and that's pretty much every guy on the team."
No matter if he wins or loses, the younger Circelli said he is sad when any game is over, because he just wants to keep playing. Ending the summer season last Saturday was a downer, he said.
"Everybody wanted to continue the season, because we had such a great success this year, but it means also switching gears for something that is just as exciting as baseball," the younger Circelli said. "It's kind of sad ending baseball, but then again, football is a great opportunity, and we have to fulfill obligation for winning football too."
The Northern Ohio Tribe had more ups than downs this summer, Coach Pallay said.
"This year I saw such extraordinary chemistry being built that I really do think, not just on the field but off the field, that I really do feel that if Solon doesn't win a state tournament this year with this senior class, I would be very disappointed. Very, very disappointed."
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