Steve Lomasney has spent the last few years rooting for the Peabody High softball team as a dad, so he knows all about the team’s big goals for this coming season.
He’s ready to do everything he can to help the Tanners meet those goals from a different vantage point as their new head coach.
A former Boston Red Sox draft pick and member of the Peabody High Athletic Hall of Fame, Lomasney was hired to lead the Tanner softball program this past weekend.
He takes over a team that went to the Division 1 state championship game in 2022 and made the Final Four last spring, and he’s pretty familiar with the squad’s top returning players since his oldest daughter, Logan, is considered one of the best infielders in the state and is a returning senior captain.
“When the idea of coaching game up, the first person I talked to about it was Logan,” said Lomasney. “She was very positive, very encouraging and things kind of progressed from there.”
The team’s previous head coach, Tawny Palmieri, was not asked back by Peabody High after putting together a 75-14 record with 11 state playoff victories. A PVMHS Hall of Famer herself, Palmieri was also not re-hired as head field hockey coach and said over the summer that school officials told her they “wanted a different philosophy.”
Once it became clear that a change was coming, Lomasney began to explore the possibility of applying for the job. Both Logan Lomasney and her fellow captain, superstar pitcher Abby Bettencourt, were excited about the idea.
“It was pretty spontaneous,” Lomasney said. “I sent in an application, had a great meeting with (athletic director) Dennis (Desroches), then got the call to meet with the principal as a finalist. I thought Ms. (Brooke) Randall and I had a great meeting, too, and then they called to say I had the job.”
Lomasney, 46, has been involved in coaching since he retired from pro baseball in 2006. As the owner of the Show New England baseball program (which has a facility in West Peabody), he’s both run high-level travel teams and also taught skills through lessons and practices.
Softball-wise, Lomasney has coached a number of youth teams over the years both in Peabody’s Little League softball program and beyond.
“Obviously there’s a lot of skills stuff that translates from baseball. The fundamentals are the same. Some things are different, and I have coached a lot of softball,” said Lomasney. “We do a lot of softball lessons, too. I’ve been involved in it quite heavily since Logan was younger.”
A three-time Salem News Softball Player of the Year going into her senior season, Bettencourt fanned 266 batters a year ago and has 546 K’s in her career. The Brown University commit’s presence in the circle makes Peabody an instant state championship contender … something Lomasney sees not as pressure, but as a challenge to embrace.
“My mindset is that from Day 1, whoever the best pitchers in the state are, that’s who we’re practicing to beat,” he said. “It’s not a switch you can flip come tournament time; it’s something you prepare for with months and months of practice.”
Developing pitching depth both for confidence and to keep Bettencourt fresh are priorities, he said.
Offensively, the Tanners are in great shape with more than 20 returning homers between Abby Bettencourt (10 HRs, .550 avg.), Logan Lomasney (8 HR, 29 RBI, .474), sophomore catcher Lizzy Bettencourt (7 HR, 23 RBI) and senior Avery Greico (2 HR, 21 RBI).
“Everybody knows we’re top heavy, but we also have a lot of really good softball players beyond that,” Steve Lomasney said. “I’m a big plate approach guy. If you go up with the right approach, you can grow a lot of depth and have a lot of production all over the batting order.”
An assistant football coach at Peabody High for the last 10 seasons, Lomasney plans to be around the school for quite a few years. He and wife Ryan’s younger children, Ty (8th grade) and Emery (7th), are headed to the high school in the near future and he wants to make sure the softball program thrives not just in 2024 but beyond.
“I’m all in,” Lomasney said.