| Correspondent
Yankees prospect Spencer Jones talks torpedo bats, plate consistency
Spencer Jones, the Yankees’ No. 6 prospect according to Baseball America, will be the big name to watch in Somerset to begin the 2025 season.
Courtesy of Somerset Patriots
Replacing a legend is never easy.
Replacing a legend as a 25-year-old with no head coaching experience, and winning a sectional title under those circumstances, is a movie script.
For maintaining and sustaining a winning tradition by leading the Tigers to the program’s first sectional crown since 2017, while sprinkling in her personal touch, makes Antonia Pacillo the choice for Home New Tribune Softball Coach of the Year.
“The program has always been so strong and that’s South Plainfield, they breed great softball players,” said Pacillo, who replaced legendary coach Don Panzarella after he resigned last June as the state’s all-time winningest coach. “I didn’t feel obligated to replace him or be like him. I walked in there to be completely myself, do what I do best and what I know how.”
She was quick to acknowledge that her talented North 2 Group 3 championship team benefited from the tutelage of Panzarella, who abruptly resigned at the end of last season.
“Having the talent already was super-helpful, all of my girls are very talented and work super hard,” Pacillo noted. “That made my life a lot easier.”
Unlike most coaching changes, this one did not require a shift in culture. Pacillo simply replaced Panzarella’s paternal relationship with his players with more of a big-sister vibe.
“I work in the school so they see me all of the time,” Pacillo stated. “I’m obviously very relatable to them. I just went through the college process that all of them are going through now. I just was where they want to be one day.”
Pacillo put some players in different roles and made some adjustments as the season progressed, such as moving Ava Fusaro up from No. 9 in the order to No. 1, as the freshman posted a .415 batting average. Perhaps her boldest move was opting for Nicole Swatko as starting pitcher during the postseason run, replacing Erin Townley, an All-Area selection after a dominant junior campaign a year ago.
“Nicole came in and she had the hot hand and she was doing so well we couldn’t not go with her,” Pacillo reasoned. “And honestly, I love Erin in the outfield. I thought our best defense was with her in right field.”
That decision paid dividends when Swatko tossed a perfect game in South Plainfield’s 2-0 sectional title win over Summit. Swatko recorded one strikeout that day, so the defense had to amass the other 20 outs flawlessly, including several plays by Townley in right field. Pacillo stressed defense, and her charges played error-free ball through the first three rounds of the state tournament and handed St. Thomas Aquinas its lone GMC defeat by making more defensive plays than the Trojans.
Pacillo graduated from St. John Vianney, where she had 31 at bats over three campaigns and played at Misericordia University, where she saw more action in compiling a .271 career batting average over four seasons and graduated in 2022. She began coaching at Brookdale while pursuing her master’s degree at Monmouth. She was pleasantly surprised to see the posting for a counselor/softball coach position in South Plainfield, where her father, Tony, had been a police officer for 20 years.
“Honestly, if I were to have my perfect pick it probably wouldn’t have been to be a head coach in my first year counseling in a school,” she said, noting time management was challenging at the start. “But it ended up working out perfectly. I would never have said no to the opportunity but I wasn’t expecting it, either.”
Pacillo credits her success at such an early age to her father, who just completed his second season as head coach at Brookdale.
“Everything that I am I owe to him” Pacillo began. “My dad was my coach since I was little and tortured me every day. The one thing we would always, always connect through would be softball. Truly everything I am is due to him and his hard work with me constantly.”
