After win 400, Jeff Limoncelli reflects on what makes coaching Horseheads baseball special

Jeff Limoncelli reached 400 wins as Horseheads varsity baseball coach on March 26, with the Blue Raiders rolling to a 17-1 home win in an unusually early season opener.

The milestone added to a run of diamond success spanning more than four decades for Limoncelli, 57.

He was a three-sport star at Elmira Free Academy, played college baseball at the University of South Carolina Aiken and the University of West Florida, then had a pro career of three and a half seasons as an infielder in the Boston Red Sox farm system, starting with the Elmira Pioneers of the New York-Penn League in 1989.

His dad, Bill Limoncelli, is among the most successful coaches in Elmira-area history. Bill is largely known for coaching basketball at EFA, Southside and Corning Community College and was manager of the Pioneers from 1986 to 1988 as part of a 16-year stint coaching in the Red Sox organization.

Jeff's 400 wins add to a 27-season head-coaching career (including the 2020 COVID season in which no games were played) that has seen him guide the Blue Raiders to nine Section 4 championships, the most recent two coming in 2022 and 2023. Horseheads won the Class A state title in his second season in 1999, when Class A was the highest class among four in New York.

He previously passed the 348 victories predecessor Jim Keenan compiled as Horseheads coach over 21 years. Limoncelli was an assistant for Keenan and for Mansfield University's Harry Hillson, one of the winningest coaches in Division II history.

Limoncelli has coached boys basketball at Horseheads since 2013-14, directing the program to three Section 4 titles. He is in his 31st year as a physical education teacher in the school district.

Limoncelli's longtime wife is Amy. Among those to play for him at Horseheads were his three sons: Joey, Nico and current Seattle Mariners minor-leaguer Mike.

Question: What does reaching 400 wins mean to you and the program?

Answer: Obviously I’m proud to be a part of it, I’m proud that it came in one program here. I’ve really enjoyed my career here. As far as me thinking about the milestone, I didn’t even know how many wins I had until my sons told me to count the books because they thought I was pretty close to 300.

Every kid that I’ve coached, I think they have a hand in it and they were always special to me. I’ve had a lot of my players reach out, which is nice. To me, when you get to that many wins it’s because I’ve coached so many years. I was telling a couple guys, I never threw a pitch for Horseheads or fielded a ground ball or hit a ball, I have kids who have just played well for me and I’m fortunate that way.

Q: What has been the key to Horseheads' success?

A: With myself and Jimmy Keenan, we’ve been fortunate enough to have a very good feeder program. Horseheads Little League has always been competitive and strong. They start that foundation and when they get to us with the modified and JVs, we fine-tune and take it from there. The kids don’t come into our program without any ability or knowledge of the game. They’re already ready to roll and taught very well at those levels. That’s been very, very advantageous to me as a coach.

Q: Pitching and defense have been consistently excellent. Is that part of your philosophy?

A: That’s been my philosophy since day one of my coaching career. I knew for kids to be successful, you had to pitch it, you had to catch it. Our pitching and defense, if you ask my former players, are probably two hours out of the two-and-a-half hour practices. Now we did put a premium on hitting and how to score runs and short game and fast-break game – all that stuff with baseball – but when it comes to it, if you don’t pitch well and if you don’t catch it out there, it doesn’t matter.

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Q: What has it meant to coach the baseball program this long?

A: I love basketball because of my father and growing up in the household, but we were mostly a baseball family. It’s been my passion and what took me to the highest level to be able to play for some years. Just to come here and have my own program and start off after Jimmy Keenan, who built this thing, my only job was don’t screw it up. Try to continue the success. It’s been a lot of fun. Being in one program my whole career has meant a lot to me. The district has allowed me to do that and I’ve had some great kids. It's been a lot of fun.

Q: What moments stand out?

A: Obviously your state championship team will always mean a lot to you. The relationships we built. We still talk today, we still have a group text today.

We’ve had some sectional championships here obviously, but it’s even the years where we don’t win it, those are special kids that we still really have a tight knit together. We lost a tough one to U-E (6-5 in 2005 Section 4 Class AA final) on the home run that hit the winning track at B-Mets stadium for U-E. We lost on the short end of a call there, but that was a team with (Matt) Manganaro and my shortstop (Mark) Carlson, I had some good players on that team and we still keep in touch. Every year you have relationships and memories. You don’t have to win championships to enjoy it, it’s high school baseball.

Q: Has your philosophy on winning changed?

A: At the high school level, you come into varsity baseball with a goal of winning, playing the best players to win. But at the end of the day it’s such a short season. It’s a lot of development, just want to develop kids. If we lose this year in the sectionals quickly, two days, three days later we’re working out here. Four days a week in the summer.

I take a lot of pride in trying to develop baseball players. If they want to play at the next level, outstanding. If they don’t, I’ll still be there for character and all that stuff. It’s just seeing our kids go on to play at the next level is pretty cool. We’ve had a lot of them.

Q: Anything specific you carried over from Keenan's tenure?

A: When I was with him I loved the organization. He was one of the most organized people I ever met. Practice organization, which to this day I will still say is the most important thing in baseball because it can get a little tiresome and tedious and you’ve got to keep things moving. It’s like a basketball practice here, it’s up-tempo. He was very organized in everything he did offensively and defensively in a practice, including the bullpens and this and that. I came into this thing after playing pro ball thinking I knew it all. All the sudden being around Keenan, you realize you don’t.

Q: What have you taken from your dad as a coach?

A: Probably almost everything. I was pretty lucky to hang around him when he was with the Pioneers and the Red Sox. He brought me to every practice or BP before the games. I was a batboy and just learning how he interacted with his players and his practice organization. He was a defensive guy also, basketball and baseball.

Again, practice organization and film and breaking down film. And he’s still doing that with me now. He’s 81 years old and still sharp as a tack.

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Q: What was it like coaching your sons?

A: That’s been my most enjoyable time of my career. I love all the kids, but there’s something about going to practice every day with your sons and enjoying everything that comes with it, whether it’s the bus rides after a win or after a loss, being able to deal with that together.

It’s not always easy. There’s some pressure coaching your own kid. I never pressured them into playing the sports I coached, but once I saw they were coming to my practices, I knew they had the bug. About seventh grade I talked to all of them saying, 'This is what’s going to happen, it doesn’t matter if you’re 4-for-4 or 0-for-4, you’re still going to be the guy that’s playing only because of your dad, so you’ve got to be able to handle that and be a man about it.' And they were really good about that. Because it’s not easy, that’s the way society is, but the one thing about this program and the parents I’ve been around, they’ve been very supportive of everything, which has made it really a lot of fun for me.

Q: Looking ahead, have you thought about retirement?

A: I think next year is probably going to be it for the teaching part of it. I would like to do some more coaching, but we’ll see what happens.

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