Silver Lake junior standouts Anthony Videtto and Jason Johndrow, both with starting roles for the No. 3 Lakers since their freshman years, simply let their talents do their talking.
“They’re not really rah-rah guys,” said Lakers coach Kenny Tocci. “They both just lead by example. They’re the strong, silent type.”
Silent, unless they’re wielding Playstation controllers against each other.
“We have some pretty intense FIFA matches,” Videtto said.
“We yell at each other,” added Johndrow. “We’ll flip out. He thinks I’m the luckiest kid in the world with all the goals I score. I do win most of the time.”
“It is mostly luck,” added a laughing Johndrow.
Silver Lake's mound aces also love to play one-on-one basketball against each other, with Videtto prevailing most often. The teammates turned best friends have even been known to turn eating into a competition.
“Sometimes we’ll go to chipotle and see who can finish our burrito faster,” said Johndrow, who acknowledged an advantage because Videtto loads his burrito with everything. “It definitely varies. Sometimes he does, sometimes I do. Basically, everything can be a competition.”
“We really can turn anything into a competition,” added Videtto. “Our biggest competitions are always in baseball though. It all started freshman year. We both heard ‘oh, he throws this hard’ and ‘he’s good on the mound.’ Ever since freshman year, we’ve just been going at it -- seeing who has better pitches, who throws harder, who can get the other out in batting practice. It’s just friendly competition.”
On the field, the competitions could be anything from in-game performance to trying to land a throw into a bucket from as far as away as their arms will let them.
“Their competition with each other is never about either one failing,” said Tocci. “It’s more like, ‘hey, he just stuck out nine, let me try for 10’ or ‘oh, he threw a two-hitter, I need to throw a two-hitter.’ And when one succeeds, the other is always the first to congratulate him. I think they just bring out the best in each other.”
The best so far has certainly been a welcome result.
As freshmen in 2013, they both had a significant hand in the Lakers' Patriot League title. Johndrow served as the No. 3 pitcher behind Patriot League MVP Tucker Bouchard and current Franklin Pierce standout Mike Lundin, finishing the season with a 3-2 record to go with an impressive 1.67 ERA. Videtto hit in the middle of lineup all year, and his .309 average finished second on the team.
A year ago, they carried the Lakers to a third straight Patriot League title and a berth in the inaugural MIAA Division 1A "Super Eight" Tournament, finishing the season 20-5. They’ve already racked up a combined 20 wins in high school.
Videtto earned ESPN Boston All-State honors last season as part of his 10-1 campaign on the mound. Johndrow, who went 6-2 in 2014, has already verbally committed to pitch at the University of Hartford (the same school that Patriot League alum Sean Newcomb of Middleborough High pitched at, before being taken in the 15th overall in last summer’s MLB Draft).
“You do care about the individual stats but it’s because you want to make sure team wins," Johndrow said. “I don’t want to be terrible and have our team lose. I want to be good enough every time out to give the team a chance to win. We’re not out here trying to compete to see who can put up better stats. We don’t really care who has more wins. We care about how many wins the team has. We’re not competitive because of our individual stats, we’re competitive because it pushes us to be better.”
All of this success they’ve enjoyed might only be the tip of the iceberg.
“The best could be to come with them if they want it to be,” said Tocci. “There’s a healthy competition between the two of them. They’re the best of friends really, but there’s definitely competition between them that pushes them forward.
"They’re both baseball rats. They work out together all year, and not just with baseball activities. They’re working on their whole games, with weights, and throwing programs, and all of the things that baseball players do. A lot of people don’t realize the difference between a baseball player and a kid who plays baseball, but these two are both baseball players.”
Added Videtto: “With us being such good friends, we’re able to make each other a lot better. We talk to each other a lot about ways to get better. We can give each other advice and critique each other. We never look at it like negative feedback, we both see it as the other trying to help to make sure we have a better at-bat or throw a better pitch.”
Even though the best days may well lay ahead for the two righthanders, the Lakers certainly aren’t ready to pencil themselves in for a return trip to the Super 8.
“The Super 8 was last year. We haven’t gotten there this year,” said Johndrow. “Hingham has been our rival every single year. Same thing with Duxbury, Middleboro and Plymouth North. Those are always really good games. And they’re all league games. Our schedule last year was good but our schedule this year is tougher.”
Added Tocci: “Nothing that has happened in the past is going to influence where this team goes. These guys understand that and believe that the page needs to be turned, because this team hasn’t won anything yet. The only way we can get to where we hope to get is to stay within ourselves is to take care of the small things and big things will take care of themselves. If we’re focused only on playing at Campanelli on June 1st, we’re going to miss a lot of things along the way.
"This team has potential to do really well, but we’re not going to sneak up on anybody. We’re going to get everyone’s ‘A’ game every time we step on the field and if we don’t match that ‘A’ game, we’ll be in a spot we don’t want to be in. For us to think otherwise would be disrespecting a lot of good programs we’re going to see along the way.”
With Plymouth North joining the Patriot League this year, the league slate now includes three teams that have won state titles during Tocci’s 9-years at SL. The non-league schedule is perhaps even more daunting, featuring games against BC High, Xaverian, Braintree, Oliver Ames, Norwood and either New Bedford or Bridgewater-Raynham (the second round of Martin Tournament is still to be determined).
“All of those teams have won state titles or have been close to winning state titles,” said Tocci. “Norwood was in the state final last year, Braintree was in the Super 8 final last year. Xaverian and BC, their traditions speak for themselves. B-R won a state title two years ago. New Bedford was in the D1 South final last year.
"Oliver Ames has been a D-2 power. Those are all programs we strive to be like. If we match last year’s 19-3 record, we deserve to return to the Super 8. If we don’t, and we end up at say 15-7 and miss the Super 8, we’ll be really battle tested for the Division 1 tournament.”
Having two pitchers who are so accomplished back in the fold, and them only being juniors, is something Tocci admits is pretty rare.
“I haven’t seen that too many times,” said Tocci. “Really, the only team I can think of was B-R bringing a lot of their innings back last year from the state title team the season before. Those guys (seniors Jack Connolly and Andrew Noviello) are back again for B-R this year, but it’s fairly comforting to know what we’re going to look like on the mound. That said, those guys still have to come out and re-prove themselves, because those performances don’t carry over year to year. As a team, we also have to figure out how to replace four starters from our lineup. Depending how we can fill those spots will determine how successful we are this season.”
Out are starters at catcher, third base, short stop and second bad. That includes the graduation of two-time Patriot league All-Star Josh O’Neill, who's currently manning second base for UMass-Dartmouth.
Still in, in addition to the start-studded pitching, is senior centerfielder Adam Gay -- a four year starter who hit a team leading .380 with 14 RBI and 18 runs scored last spring. Classmate Dan Cole hit a robust .344 with 16 RBI, while three-year starter Tanner Bouchard registered a team-high 22 runs scored.
Will Gallagher, an intriguing athlete and former state high jump champ, is back in the mix after filling a variety of roles for SL a year ago. Evan McSherry will take over the starting second base role and Nate Youseff will see significant time manning an outfield spot for the Lakers. Videtto will also be expected to shoulder important at-bats after hitting .311 with 14 RBI and 17 runs scored.
Gallagher and Gay both figure to see time on the mound after getting their feet wet last season. The duo combined on 18-1/3 innings last year, but both made mound appearances during the Super 8. Mike Melanson is also expected to have play a big role on the mound.
The Lakers starting lineup will include a pair of freshman, with Greg Wozniak handling catching duties and Dan Collins taking over at third base. Wozniak, a transplant from Georgia, will bring a big bat into the middle of the SL order. Collins will see time on the mound in addition to the hot corner.
With the pieces all in place, including its duo of aces, Silver Lake will be looking to let their talents to the talking again this season as they pursue a fourth straight Patriot League title and a run back to the Super 8.