BSU baseball gets set for new season

02/26/2014

By AJ Pascuzzo

Comment Contributor

Sophomore pitcher David Holmes will have to play a big role in his second season as a Bear. BSU Athletics - Photo. — Sophomore pitcher David Holmes will have to play a big role in his second season as a Bear. BSU Athletics – Photo.

With the warm weather approaching and spring right around the corner, every athlete knows what that means. It’s baseball season.

With a bunch of new faces to the team after losing twelve seniors, the Bridgewater State University baseball team is looking ahead to a new team and a new season on the diamond.

The Bears start their season with their annual roadtrip to Florida, where they will play eight games in six days starting on March 8 with a doubleheader against the Apprentice School.

“This upcoming season will definitely be different than last year’s,” said junior outfielder Sean Brooks. “With losing almost all of our starters we will have lots of players with little game time experience. Even in this rebuilding year we have lots of talent with great team chemistry.”

The Bears lost several key players from last year’s squad, including Sean Riley and David Pierce, creating a large gap to fill. With a team full of new faces, Brooks will be relied upon on to fill the void.

With the younger team, Bridgewater State was picked to finish third in the Massachusetts State Collegiate Athletic Conference preseason poll behind Salem State University and Framingham State University, respectively.

That is just a preseason ranking according to Brooks because being picked to finish third this year doesn’t faze him.

“Teams know we lost a lot of seniors and think they will be able to run all over us,” Brooks said. “We are going to use that as motivation, and show the conference that we are a great team. If teams take us lightly they will be caught by surprise.”

While the Bears have many newcomers, their pitching staff remains intact as starting pitchers senior Andy Sadoski, senior Kenny Pennini, junior David Martin, and sophomore David Holmes all return.

Despite having an inexperienced team, Holmes believes the team can overcome their youth.

“It will definitely be a challenge to fill in some of the spots, but I think it is doable,” Holmes said. “We are a younger team this year, but everyone has stepped up and worked really hard. We know there aren’t going to be any superstars that will single handedly win games for us this year so we need to stick together as a team.”

The Bears will play the first eight games of their season in Florida, and will continue their nonconference schedule once they return on March 18 against Brandeis University.

AJ Pascuzzo is a Comment Contributor. Editor-in-Chief Greg Dudek edited this story. Email him at gdudek@student.bridgew.edu.

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