East Providence's Mercurio reflects on rise up baseball coaching ladder

Twenty-five years after starting in Little League, ends 2017 season as high school state champion

By Mike Rego
Posted 8/16/17

EAST PROVIDENCE — As he sat on the bench in early June at McCoy Stadium, the mecca of the sport in Rhode Island, the significance of the moment was certainly not lost on Rumford resident and …

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East Providence's Mercurio reflects on rise up baseball coaching ladder

Twenty-five years after starting in Little League, ends 2017 season as high school state champion

Posted

EAST PROVIDENCE — As he sat on the bench in early June at McCoy Stadium, the mecca of the sport in Rhode Island, the significance of the moment was certainly not lost on Rumford resident and LaSalle Academy baseball head coach Mark Mercurio; how his career rose from humble beginnings to the top of the high school ladder.

Mercurio and his Rams capped off a terrific 2017 season, one in which they raced from the gates on a perfect 6-0 run, with the school’s first Division I state championship in 33 years. Not bad for a guy who was admittedly a middling player during his high school career at East Greenwich and who has only coached at the high school level for six years, three of which were with the LSA freshmen team.

“It’s kind of fun when you think about it,” Mercurio said recently, reflecting on how his coaching career began. “I started out in Rumford Little League T-Ball with my oldest son Andrew, the Rumford Farm League, Rumford Majors, All-Stars, then I moved into middle school at St. Margaret’s. We started the program there. I’m very proud of that team and what we did in a couple of years. No less than eight guys on that team went on to play Division I (college) baseball, like with (Rumford natives) Sam Dodge playing at Harvard and Brendan Tracy at Fairfield to name a few. A lot of good players came through that program. That was a lot of fun, and it set me up to do this job.”

Mercurio, like so many fathers, got into coaching with his eldest son when he moved to Rumford back in 1992. He remained a Little League coach there for the better part of the next two decades, coaching his second son Conor during that time as well, before joining the LaSalle program with the freshmen team when his youngest son, Nick, entered high school seven years ago. In between, he helped start the middle school level program at SMS with another of his sons, Matt.

“Doug Haynes (known locally as the long time basketball coach at Bay View) was the coach here then,” Mercurio said, explaining how he joined the LaSalle staff. “My son Nick was on the freshmen team and I would sit on the sidelines watching practice. Doug had all these kids on the team, and he was all by himself. Balls would be flying by him, and one day I said, ‘Coach, you need some help?’ He said yes, so I end up jumping out there with a glove and the next thing you know I’m his assistant. A year later, he leaves to go to Moses Brown, and Geoff Marcone (former LSA varsity coach), who saw what I did with Doug, says you should be the head coach. So I take the job.”

Mercurio’s team enjoyed near instant success. The Rams lost in the freshmen state championship his first season, in 2012, then won the title the next two springs. And when Marcone, who remains a teacher at LaSalle and the Rams’ football coach, decided to give up the baseball job, Mercurio eventually decided to apply for the position.

“I wasn’t going to go for the job at first. I thought I was where I was supposed to be, as the freshmen head coach. But then I talked to a few people, and they said I should throw my hat in the ring. So I submitted my resume, had the interview and got the job. I never thought it would happen,” Mercurio said.

The Rams, with a significant assist from talented players with East Bay ties, gradually improved during Mercurio’s first two seasons in 2015 and 2016, setting the stage for their run to the title this past spring.

“We started off strong,” Mercurio said of 2017. “We had a great preseason. We may have had an advantage with the (artificial) turf field (on the LaSalle campus). And I also scheduled a lot of non-league games outside of Rhode Island on turf fields outside of Boston, and I think it helped us get off to the 6-0 start.

“I think that gave the team a great deal of confidence, but then we had a difficult stretch after that. We lost three of four, all by one run. I think the guys got a little too comfortable, so we as a staff decided to make things more competitive in practice. We made a couple of changes. And (junior transfer Braedon) Carney becoming eligible (at mid-season) made a big difference offensively. We were missing that stick in the lineup.”

Following the fast start, LaSalle actually went .500 the rest of the way to finish with a 12-6 mark and in third place behind 15-3 South Kingstown and 14-4 Cranston East in the regular season standings. It was a good year, though not as good as the coach or his players had hoped for, but they knew they could change that heading into the playoffs.

“We lost the last two games of the year, including on senior night. We had a party that night. Everyone was still feeling good even though we lost. But I put a challenge to them. I told them we started the year 6-0 and there’s no reason why we couldn’t go 6-0 to end the year. If we win six games, we win the state championship, so that was the challenge to the team that night,” Mercurio said.

The Rams would win those six games, all in a row, but not without plenty of drama. LaSalle edged East Providence, 4-3, in its playoff opener before handling Moses Brown rather easily, 6-3. The Rams then played a pair of hard-fought outings against Cranston East, beating the Thunderbolts 6-1 and 10-7 to qualify for the final opposite South Kingstown, which likewise won four games in a row to reach the championship round.

Thanks in large part to Bristol resident and junior Sean Gill, who drove in the winning run in both contests on a pair of clutch hits, LaSalle captured the title with 4-2 and 6-5 wins over the Rebels in the best-of-three final at McCoy. And it was there, in that scene and setting, where it all hit Mercurio, how fortunate and wonderful a ride he’s been on since he first began coaching back in Rumford a quarter century ago.

“Actually just before the first game of the state finals, I’m sitting on the bench at McCoy with (assistant coach) Gary Bucci and I thought back to the beginning of the year when I brought the team into the gym. There’s a baseball banner hanging way up in the corner that was all dusty and crummy. The last year on it was 1984. So I brought the team in and I said, ‘Guys, this thing needs some attention. Let’s make this our year.’

“So, sitting in that dugout at McCoy Stadium was cool, but then to actually win it was great. And after the second game, after we won, I was just so happy and I kind of reflected on it, how I went from Rumford Little League to this. It’s pretty amazing when you think about.”

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