This is a printer-friendly version of an article from Zip06.com.
07/06/2017 12:00 AMThe Shoreline Cougars feature a young roster this summer, and they couldn’t ask for a better leader to guide their up-and-coming ballplayers than veteran Scott Masse.
Scott, a catcher/third baseman, is an Old Saybrook resident who recently completed his junior season at Xavier High School. Last summer, Scott joined the Cougars—a U-18 baseball team that also features athletes from Chester, Haddam, Killingworth, and Middletown—and helped them notch 17 victories during their inaugural season.
Now this year, Scott is one of just four returning players on the club, and so there’s an extra emphasis for all of them to provide quality leadership. Despite the fact that Scott plays in the Southern Connecticut Conference, while many of his teammates compete in the Shoreline Conference during the high school season, Scott has stepped right into the thick of things, and is building a strong rapport with his teammates this year.
“I’ve tried to form relationships with the pitchers. I don’t see many of these guys during the spring season or play with them. I obviously know the guys that were on this team last year, but I’m not as used to catching certain guys. For the ones I do know from last year, it’s about bringing that connection back with them,” says Scott, who has a batting average of .298 and has thrown out four runners from the behind the plate. “For hitting this season, I’ve worked on changing my mindset at the plate and taking whatever the pitcher gives me and spraying the ball over the field.”
Scott first took to the field in a wiffleball league in North Branford when he was in 1st grade, after which he moved through the ranks of Little League, Babe Ruth, and middle school ball in Old Saybrook. As a member of the team at Xavier, Scott has not only learned a lot about what it takes to be a good baseball player, but also about how to be a consummate leader.
“My freshman year at Xavier, I didn’t have a lot of playing time, and it was a character-building moment for me, because I realized I had to earn my spot,” Scott says. “A great player is someone who wants to show up to the park and improve every day. They can’t be someone who just wants to get by and win. You have to also be someone who pushes their teammates to be better.”
While he’s only in his second year as the Cougars’ skipper, Dennis Annicelli has seen firsthand how Scott has become a high-caliber athlete, as well as an exemplary teammate and leader for his squad.
“I’ve coached Scott for the last four years now, and I’ve watched him grow into a great ballplayer and an even better young man,” says Annicelli. “He leads by example with his baseball skills. He’s a great competitor, and he brings that spirit to the whole team. When we aren’t hitting, he fires everyone up. He shows sportsmanship on and off the field, and he’s an extension of a coach on the field.”
Scott is in constant communication with his pitchers when he’s behind the plate, and he takes a similar approach while patrolling the hot corner at third by keeping everyone on an even keel.
“At catcher, I worry about keeping everything in front of me and also keeping the pitcher in the game mentally,” he says. “It translates to third base, because I help to make everyone in the field calm, and I work on lining up incoming balls that may be tough to field.”
Although the Cougars have seen some struggles early on this year, they’re ready to push past those growing pains and put together a solid second half of the season in the East Shore Travel League.
“We are a very young team this year with four returning guys, so we have a lot of sophomores and juniors. The older guys know that the rest of the team look up to us to set the tone for how far we can go,” says Scott, who thanks his teammates on both Xavier and the Cougars. “Our goal is to get to the championship game this year.”