The Boston Globe from Boston, Massachusetts • 18

18 NH THE BOSTON SUNDAY GLOBE FEBRUARY 27, 1994 7'w consistent in the minors and I think I have the consistency to make it to the major leagues. That's the whole thing, consistency. DON FLORENCE, Red Sox minor league pitcher At Large Florence eyes a Fenway future Serino's squad displays local color By Guy Nadeau SPECIAL TO THE GLOBE traight from the Field House into the fire, first-year University of New Hampshire baseball coach rxn EW BOSTON One could readily understand if Don Florence displayed additional bounce Chris Serino takes his Wildcats south to Washing-' I ton and then on to North Carolina in a couple of weeks. his step when he left his ome here recently for pring training in Florida. iAfter being named to the UNH leaves March 10 and opens the next day against Mount St.

Mary's in Emmitsburg, outside Washington, plays a doubleheader against the same school Saturday and then it's test time. The Wildcats play national powers Wake Forest on Monday and Clemson on Tuesday. It's back to Wake Forest on Wednesday and then on to games against North Carolina at Greensboro Thursday and Davidson Friday. "If we're going to attract good kids here, we're going to have to play a first-rate schedule," Serino said. "We not only have those guys but we have Harvard and Dartmouth from the Ivies, Providence and Boston College from the Big East and UMass from the Atlantic 10.

We have a pretty good schedule." The Boston College game is May 5, under the lights at Gill Stadium in Manchester. "We're going to try to get around the state if we can," Serino said. "Next year we hope to play a game at Gill, maybe one H' -A 5 I'- tral? 85w l- if it ''ft' ft AW. Wt I I ') 'J 1 -v AVI A js jS -4, r) AAA All-Star team last sea-ison, Florence, a lefthanded fhurler with the Pawtucket Sox, was overlooked by iBoston when it came time for jjthe usual September callups. However, in January, Florence received a call from his agent, Phil Tannen-baumn, indicating the Boston sRed Sox were inviting him to their major league, rather (than minor league, training facility in Fort Myers.

'Enough to make any player a shappy camper. While not on Boston's 40-man roster and with one year remaining on his con his minor league career, he said: "I realized early on that I couldn't strike everybody out; I had to get the ground ball. It's not like high school or Legion, all nine batters you're facing are out of college and are tough." Any chance of promotion to Boston may hinge, in part, on the performances and health of such lefties as Joe Hesketh and Tony Fossas on the parent club, along with prospects Shawn Senior, Joe Ciccarella and Rafael Orel-lano like Florence, port-siders. Should there be no opportunity with Boston after next season, he would become a free agent and could try signing with another club. Florence, meanwhile, attributes his sound pitching arm to his days as a quarterback on Manchester grid teams.

"I never had a sore arm. The fact I played football eight years, throwing, maybe built up my rotator cuff and helped me pitching." Adds Lemire, "He's a strong kid with big forearms and wrists. I think he has the capabilities to make it to the majors; if they give him a shot he can do as good as anyone. They've been moving him up. I think his biggest asset is he can pitch every day." Previously, when at New Britain, he was managed one year by current Boston skipper Butch Hobson, and fellow Granite Stater Rich Gale was his pitching coach.

Hopefully, Hobson will recall Florence's consistent performance for him at New Britain. "If I can go out and have a good spring, I think IH wake up a few people," Florence said. "I think I could slide in there." Naturally, he'd like to see a youth move 'If we're going to attract in Nashua and one in Concord." The Wildcats already have New Hampshire players to showcase around the state, and Serino plans to recruit more. Freshman Curt Conley of Rochester will probably start in centerfield and classmates Jeff McNally of Exeter and Jon Wheeler of Londonderry good kids, we're going to have to play a first-rate tract with its AAA affiliate in Pawtucket the 6-foot, 185-pound Florence realizes that working with the parent club this spring should afford him a better opportunity at receiving a closer look. "If I have a good spring I think I have a shot," Florence said.

Tve been consistent in the minors and I think I have the consistency to make it to tjhe major leagues. That's the whole thing, consistency," he said. Florence grew up in Man- 1 Chester, playing baseball and 'football at Memorial High Sand the diamond sport for Jutras Post, American Le- gion. In 1985, he led Jutras to that post's only state title, land in the opening game of Itjie subsequent Northeast Regionals in Bristol, 'fanned 17 batters in a one- GLOBE PHOTO J.D. DENHAM Don Florence works out on a leg machine prior to heading to Florida with the Red Sox.

will also see time in the out- CHRIS SERINO field. Freshman Ken Jobin, who HHHH pitched for Manchester Memorial last year, and senior Jim Collins of Rochester will be among Serino's leading starters. Freshman Charlie Chungu, who was at John Stark last year, will see action as a starter and in relief. Freshman Brian Larochelle, redshirting as a goaltender with the hockey team, will see time at catcher. Serino has a solid, all-junior infield with Doug Spofford of Swampscott, and Scott Ivens of Norwood, Mass.

the team's best hitters last year at first and third. Alex Watson is the second baseman and Fran McHugh of Reading, catcher. Pete McHugh, a lefthanded sophomore, and Fran's brother, will start and relieve. Wake Forest will be playing its 20th game by the time it sees UNH, thus the need to stop on the way down and get in a few games and some outdoor practices. UNH had its first winning season in years at 23-20 last spring, and Serino thinks things are still on the upswing.

The Wildcats have a new scoreboard going up, the bleachers will be painted and Serino said the drainage on the infield that was put in last year has been excellent. "Obviously, we want to have a winning season," Serino said. "And we'd like to get home field for the playoffs." The top four teams in the eight-team North Atlantic Conference will play the first round of the playoffs at home. "We're excited about getting going and seeing how good we are," Serino said. "We had a pretty good fall they went 10-0 but that doesn't mean a whole lot But the kids got to know me and I got to know them." A little Snively Arena trivia: Many know that Brad Houston scored the first goal in the new Snively Arena on Feb.

13, Continued on next page ment in Boston, a wish that might be granted with the recent arrival of new GM Dan Duquette, who has indicated an affinity for players on the way up rather than on the way down in their careers. Florence's father, Hank, a coach with Jutras Post, and his mother, Jean, have enjoyed the trek to Pawtucket and McCoy Stadium to see their son pitch. They would surely enjoy even more the shorter haul to Boston and Friendly Fenway should he be given a crack at making it with the parent club. In any event, if a promotion to the majors is not in the offing by the time his contract with Pawtucket is up, Don Florence is intent on sticking it out perhaps a couple more years at the AAA level, if he has to, advancing age notwithstanding. After all, lefhanded hurlers are much in demand.

ijmn win over New London, Conn. also played center field and hit third and fourth for me," said Paul Lemire, who coached the successful 1985 Jutras nine. "I hit .428 that year," Florence said. Lemire, who played in the minors for the Montreal Expos in 1980-81 and who will become head coach of the Sweeney Post Legion team in Manchester this summer, thinks his former student has the ingredients to make it to the majors. "Against New London, he threw about 200 pitches.

I think he can pitch every day," said Lemire. "He has a strong arm." Florence was signed as a free agent by Red Sox scout Bill Enos in October 1987, after two years at Crowder Junior College in the South. He said his fastball is clocked at 84-85 m.p.h., and his pitches in addition to his fastball include a slider, curve and changeup. "I have good control," said Florence, a middle reliever. "I can come back with a slider when behind in the count." Employed in the offseason by Colonial Supply Corp.

in Manchester, he keeps in shape working out at Gym USA in that city's West Side. Married to the former Tonia Kennedy from nearby New Boston, and with an 11-month-old child, Tatum, Florence will be 27 on March 16. It figures, then, that after six years in the minors and growing family responsibilities, he might itch at the bit for a contract at the major league level. Florence compiled a 6-1 record and 2.00 earned run average when named to the AAA All-Star team, finishing 6-8 with an ERA of 3.00 and 6 saves for Pawtucket As a reliever at times summoned to face a lone batter he did not get in as many innings as he would have liked. And reflecting on Foreign flavor Spices up NHC basketball team By Guy Nadeau SPECIAL TO THE GLOBE ANCHESTER While it mierht be hard to believe, there 1 I waa a tmie wnen basketball was I I as foreign to Stan Spirou as a UFO.

During his youth in li I I r. Sports Notebook Guy Nadeau Wrestling coach leaving Salem After 13 years in which his teams never fared worse than third in the state championships, Rich Langlois is packing it in as head coach of wrestling at Salem High. "I've enjoyed it and I've been blessed with some good kids, but it's time for something else," Langlois said. The something else, he reports, will entail finding more time to watch daughter Heather play basketball at nearby Haverhill High, and his younger daughter, Allison, "also involved in sports as a fifth grader." During his tenure, Salem wrestling teams earned state championships in 1984, "88 and "90 in addition to the Class title in 1991. Langlois led his team to a runner-up finish to Keene in the Class Championships last weekend, and Salem, along with Nashua, was runnerup -in 19S6 to Keene and was second to White Mountains Regional in '83 -all this despite lack of an adequate feeder system.

Langlois was closing his career last night as his 1993-94 edition was playing host to the Meet of Champions. ContinawToTi next page embarking on a coaching career. "I was a good outside shooter, too bad the game was played indoors," he said. Given his origins, it figured, perhaps, that once at NHC Spirou would end up recruiting at least one hoopster from Greece, the latest being George Kasmeridis, a lean 6-foot-10-inch performer. "The Greek Peak," Spirou has tabbed his junior classman.

And it didn't necessarily figure, perhaps, that Spirou GLOBE PHOTO J.D. DENHAM Greece, kids took to playing soccer, not schoolyard basketball That was in the tumultuous '60s. Years and a fast-receding hairline later and with his New Hampshire College mens' hoop program consistently basking in the Division 2 limelight basketball is anything but foreign to Spirou, coach of the highly successful Manchester-based Penmen. There is, however, a foreign tinge, albeit in another sense: The team bears some identity to its coach three players have their roots in foreign countries. Spirou was 10 years old when he emigrated to Manchester from Porti in northern Greece.

And it wasn't long before hoops, rather than soccer, was to command his attention as he was to play a guard slot at Central High and Keene State College prior to Stan Spirou, New Hampshire College basketball eoaeh, a native of Greece, reacts to eailed foul would claim a fine athlete from Turkey, but he did. Baris Kacar was to end up with the Penmen after being spotted by a coach from the Greek National Team, a friend of Spirou's. And prior to the arrival of those two was to rome THE prizf recruit in Wayne Robprt- After graduating from Keene State in 1974, Spirou was to join head mentor Ed Wade as assistant basketball coach at Central. "He put me in charge of the junior varsity and I became head coach in 1978, leaving CoTifrmed on next pare son, a native of Jamaica who had moved with his family 1 to Toronto, and was discovered there quite by accident by Spirou. In his senior year, Robertson is an M-American and second-leading rebounder nationally in Division 2..