SENIOR WEEKS: Coatesville’s Seagreaves waits for surgery, and wonders if he’ll see his team take the field this spring

EDITOR’S NOTE: With the COVID-19 pandemic putting the 2019 spring sports season on hold, we wait and see if Chester County high school senior athletes will get a chance to suit up at all for their final farewells. In the meantime, we’ll highlight a Chester County spring sports senior most weekdays in March and April.

With the scholastic baseball season on hold due to the COVID-19 pandemic — and no signs of a rescheduled opening day any time soon — we begin our series on senior athletes with an ironic twist.

As of a few months ago, Coatesville pitcher Derek Seagreaves was penciled in as the ace of the Red Raiders staff. But three weeks ago, Seagreaves hurt his elbow, and was slated to miss his entire spring season anyway due to Tommy John surgery scheduled for March 18th.

The coronavirus pandemic pushed that surgery back to April — for now — and also meant that the rest of his teammates would be in the same boat as Seagreaves. One without any baseball to play.

“With all the stuff going on it is really sad and unbelievable and a little bit crazy,” Seagreaves said. “We were really looking forward to this season.”

Once Seagreaves has his Tommy John surgery — an obviously “elective” prodecure that may continue to be postponed due to hospital time and capacity — he will require 11 to 14 months of rehabilitation. Seagreaves is planning to head to nearby Arcadia University in the fall.

“Everybody has picked Downingtown East to win the league and that would make our games with them all the more intense and exciting,” Seagreaves said. “There is no better atmosphere than playing under the lights at Coatesville and we were ready to go this season.

Like his teammates, Seagreaves was really looking forward to this season. And now, both he and his senior classmates are left wondering if they’ll ever get to wear the Coatesville red and black again.

“I feel a little funny because I was going to miss the season anyway because of the injury, and now the other guys can’t play,” Seagreaves said. “I feel like I cheated things a little bit. We are a real close-knit team and we were really looking forward to this season. I hope we can salvage some kind of season because even if I can’t play, I want to watch my team play the games.”

Coatesville coach Hal Ziegler was very optimistic going into the 2020 season and Seagreaves was a big reason the longtime Coatesville coach was high on his Red Raiders this season.

“Derek was going to be our No. 1 pitcher,” Ziegler said. “He worked really hard during the offseason and we were really counting on him for a lot of innings this year. It was really a shock when he went down, and now with the season on hold it is just a really weird feeling. I never imagined anything like this could happen.”