Photo: Steve Galluzzo
By STEVE GALLUZZO | Sports Editor
Having come within one victory of a trip to Dodger Stadium last spring, the Palisades High baseball team is anxious to get back on the field for another run at a City Section title.
Coach Mike Voelkel is optimistic after seeing his team make vast improvements in all areas through fall and winter ball and despite nine key players graduating, he believes his group is ready to defend the Western League crown.
“The boys are buying in, and we’ve scrimmaged a lot to get our game pitch counts up in preparation for three games a week,” he said. “Our pitching is solid. We don’t have an ace like Mason Edwards was last year, but we’ve got 11 guys who can pitch.”
Highlighting a deep staff is senior right-hander John Iacono, who was 4-0 with a team-low 0.52 earned run average and 61 strikeouts in 40.1 innings pitched last year. Also seeing their share of work on the hill will be seniors Reece Frankel and Alex Loos along with juniors Roman Hawk and Ian Sullivan.
The infield should be strong at the hot corner with Hawk and Andres Trujillo and at first base with Jordan Harris and Sullivan platooning. Up the middle, Hudson Rambert and Frankel will share shortstop duties while Loos and Conor Greene will trade off at second. Replacing Nate Sterling and Soren Apple at catcher will be junior Isaac Buenrostro catcher and freshman Sy Kalish.
“One area where I believe we’re stronger is in the outfield,” said Voelkel, who was blessed with one of the City’s best center fielders last year, speedster Amari Yolas, who won the Post Cup Award as the school’s outstanding senior athlete. “We’re not going to replace Amari’s skill set but collectively we’ll be better all-around with
Yonah Cohen, Noah Andrews and Logan Bailey all returning and the addition of sophomore Jack Kurlan. They all run well, take good routes to the ball and throw accurately, so we should be able to minimize extra bases and force the other team to get multiple hits to score runs.”
Add to the roster junior utility players Max Miller and Parsa Imankhan and senior pitcher Mason Binder and the Dolphins are at least two-deep at every position.
“We haven’t shown a ton of firepower with the bats, so we’ll need to take advantage of balls in dirt, draw walks and steal some bases to generate runs,” Voelkel said. “We came on strong at the end of fall and hopefully that carries over into the season, but every year is different.”
Despite having to pull out of the El Camino Real Tournament, Voelkel loaded the schedule with strong City opponents. In addition to the Poly and Tiger tournaments the Dolphins will make their annual trip to San Diego in late March for the Lions Tournament. The slate features nonleague games with Banning, Marshall, Bell, Kennedy, San Pedro, Granada Hills, Roosevelt, San Fernando, Legacy and Verdugo Hills.
Voelkel has piloted the Dolphins to 11 league titles and the Open Division playoffs every season since 2018, including a finals appearance in 2019. Palisades opens the season versus North Hollywood Friday night at George Robert Field.
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