Monomoy Baseball Interim Head Coach Using Army Reserve Experience To Steady Team

HARWICH – Monomoy baseball interim head coach Tim Nickerson was just south of Riyadh a year or two ago when he got something of a lesson in how to connect with a younger generation.

 A master sergeant in the U.S. Army Reserve, Nickerson was outside the Saudi Arabian capital city on his third deployment when a 23-year-old fellow soldier asked to speak with him.

 Come on in, Nickerson replied.

 “‘Hey, I just want to tell you kind of how we think and operate and stuff,’” Nickerson recalled the soldier saying. “And that was just a good conversation with a younger group and for me to learn.”

 Back stateside, that conversation — that final deployment — is serving as key background experience for Nickerson in how to lead a group of young men on a baseball diamond. 

Nickerson was just an assistant coach approaching his second season with the Sharks — under head coach Louis Elia — when he retired after 22 years with the Reserves this past winter. A game into this season, Elia resigned, Nickerson said. So the retired master sergeant stepped up and into the head coach role on an interim basis.

“Losing him and for this team too to overcome that — like, ‘Hey, you just lost your head coach’ — and a lot of change and turmoil here and to reset and to regain momentum,” Nickerson said. “And I mean, good on these guys for working through that.”

With the sudden change in leadership, it took some time for the Sharks to get their feet under them. After losing their first four games, they won three of the next four. Leadership, discipline, mindset; all of the two-decades-plus in the Reserves — 2011 in Baghdad, 2018-19 in Kuwait, 2024-25 in Riyadh — is coming into play for Nickerson as he suddenly is in charge of running a high school baseball team. He joined the program with Elia last year, the two having previously coached together in the Cape’s Dugout Dawgs program.

“Not to say it was seamless, but I mean, it was a pretty smooth transition to step in, and these guys, again, transitioned well,” Nickerson said.

Monomoy earned their first win — and Nickerson’s first as head coach — last week in a 12-2 five-inning victory over Cape Cod Tech. They followed that with a 19-9 win against Sturgis West. Most recently, the Sharks took down Wareham 12-2 in five innings on Monday (they were also set to face Barnstable on Tuesday, after The Chronicle’s deadline).

A core of juniors forms a Sharks lineup that’s scored double-digit runs in each of their three wins thus far. Juniors Luke Barbella and Ethan Carey have put together multi-hit, multi-RBI performances in the middle of Monomoy’s order. Senior Tyler Ayer and juniors Ben Hager and Lincoln Sanford have made starts, while players like senior Joey Ventura, junior Hank Brown and sophomore Tyler Layton have appeared out of the bullpen. Junior shortstop Aidan O’Keefe went 3-for-3 with a double and two RBIs in Monomoy’s first win of the year.

“Beginning of the season, he was down in the order and things weren't quite working, and we changed the lineup up and ended up putting him in the leadoff spot,” Nickerson said. “He really took an advantage. He's really excelling there in that spot.”

In between the three wins the Sharks dropped a game 9-2 last Friday against St. John Paul II, who were off to an 8-0 start. Facing a hard-throwing southpaw, Monomoy busted out the playbook in the third inning with a crafty double steal move (Layton separating from first base to force a pick-off, then stalling long enough for O’Keefe at third to scurry home) to scratch out a run against the undefeated Lions.

“That's a really good baseball team right there, and we competed all the way through,” Nickerson said after the game. “That's what I just told them out there. Proud of you guys for competing all the way through all seven innings. We never blew up. They never got a big inning, so we kept it relatively close the whole way.”

Staying steady through coaching-change turbulence is never easy, but with the framework left by Elia and more than 20 years of experience in the Reserves to draw upon, Nickerson was ready to step in this season.

“We're improving for sure,” Nickerson said. “It's good to get a couple wins under our belt, get some momentum going and compete against this really good team, so I'm looking to continue to roll here.”