With the season less than a week away, the baseball team is ready to make improvements from last year’s season, which left something to be desired. The Bluejays went 24-25 and did not win the Big East tournament, although they did muster an 11-4 Big East conference record and won the conference regular-season title. This year they are picked to finish third in the Big East preseason poll.
“Some people forget that we actually did win the conference. I know a lot of people don’t realize that or don’t even talk about it,” coach Ed Servais explained.
This team is a greatly different one from last year’s, with 21 players not returning to the 34-man roster. Top pitcher Rollie Lacy departed after the 2017 season for the Eugene Emeralds, the Class A minor league team for the Chicago Cubs. The leading closers, David Gerber and Ethan DeCaster, both left. Gerber now plays in minor league baseball for the Everett AquaSox and DeCaster is enrolled in graduate school at Duke University. Upon joining their team, DeCaster was described by Duke baseball coach Chris Pollard as “one of the top relief pitchers in the country over the past two seasons.”
With a new season comes new opportunities, and while the roster underwent a great deal of change in the offseason, returning players, staff and new team additions are ecstatic for the year’s potential.
Servais struck an optimistic tone on the new team; “We’re excited about the incoming players, not only did it fill a lot of needs, but this is a high-character group,” he said. “We focused this class on bringing in a strong group of young arms, as well as a couple high-level position players who are athletic enough to excel in TD Ameritrade Park.”
Along with new players, the team keeps its highest batting average in sophomore Parker Upton, a Nebraska native, along with junior catcher Michael Emodi, who was picked for the preseason All-Big East team.
The season begins with a three-game series against Northeastern in Fort Meyers, Florida on Feb 16. Students won’t be able to cheer on the Bluejays at home until a month later, when they take on Wichita State on March 16 at TD Ameritrade Park—the first of 26 homes games this season. The Bluejays have big hopes for this year, with a conference title at the forefront. “That’s still goal number one for us [winning the Big East],” Servais said.
“That’s still not enough for us, we want to win the conference tournament and go beyond.”