By Dan Powell
While 20 degree temperatures and snow flurries do not exactly scream, “Play ball!” it is finally February and time for the Pride to start the baseball season. While most Hofstra students were home relaxing after a long semester, the Pride spent January practicing and gearing up as they look to improve on last year’s 24-31-1 season.
It could be a rough season for Hofstra, though, as they lost their top three run producers from a year ago when Ricky Caputo, Josh Stern, and Mike Walsh graduated last May. The team will likely look to get a great deal of production out of juniors Anthony Sarno and Matt Kougasian, both of whom showed great promise at the plate last year hitting .316 and .292, respectively. The senior leadership in the lineup will come from infielder Andrew Campana, the only senior slated to be in the everyday line-up.
“It’s tough to lose quality guys like we did last year, but I think we’ll be all right,” head coach Chris Dotolo said. “I don’t think we’ll really need to replace their production because our offense is more built around speed and putting the ball in play. Everybody will be able to chip in a little bit.”
Despite having a young line-up, the Pride has a very veteran staff returning in 2007. Six of the team’s seven seniors are pitching including last year’s wins leader Ryan Dunn. The pitching staff will no doubt need to improve on their 5.92 earned run average if they are going to succeed this season. The Pride will need there Killer Dee’s (Dunn, Will DeVito, and Jeff Denlea) along with fellow seniors Charlie Frago, John Fuhrman and Patrick Rogers to have strong senior campaigns on the mound if they hope to make the .500 mark for the first time since joining the CAA in 2002.
“Everybody needs to step it up this year,” Frago said. “We have a pretty strong bunch of senior pitchers and I think we’ll get it done on the mound this year.”
Another consistent area for Hofstra is their coaching staff, as all three members from a year ago will be on board in 2007. Dotolo is returning for his sixth season at the helm. He is just 86-174-1 but has improved the team each year, going from 12-40 in 2002 to last season’s 24-31-1 finish. Still with such a young team this could be the first year Dotolo allows the Pride’s record to slip as the team faces some tough opponents this year.
The team, which is predicted to finish 10th out of 11 teams in the Colonial Athletic Association, was slated to open its season at powerhouse Oklahoma State last weekend but the three game series was cancelled due to severe winter weather. Instead the Pride will take on another powerhouse when they travel to Auburn for a three game set this coming weekend. This the fourth year in a row Hofstra will take on the Tigers, who have beaten the Pride in all nine previous meetings. Still, the Pride’s biggest challenge may not come until a week after the Auburn Series when Hofstra will travel to Tallahassee to take on an 18th ranked Florida State team.
While Hofstra has struggled against major programs like Auburn and Florida State in the past, Dotolo strongly believes that playing teams of that caliber is crucial in making the Pride a better team.
“I never want the best team we play any year to be the best team in our conference,” Dotolo said. “The other thing is they play at such a faster speed than lesser programs that it gets us ready so the ‘wow’ factor is gone when we take on stronger schools in our conference like Old Dominion and VCU.”
However, with such a tough schedule in the early going it will be tough for the Pride to get off to a strong start. While they could have the moral victory of knowing they are a better team than their record shows when they play their first home game on March 2nd, moral victories don’t show up in the wins column and Hofstra could be well below .500 before they even enter conference play.
Hofstra’s conference schedule is no joy-ride this year either, as the Pride has struggled against more talented Southern teams since joining the CAA. This year does not figure to be any different as the top four teams, Virginia Commonwealth, UNC Wilmington, Delaware, and Old Dominion, all return solid, experiences cores from last season.
Facing a strong conference and an even tougher non-conference schedule with a young team, it could be a rough year on the diamond for the Pride. Senior arms must step up if the Pride is going to make its goals of 30 wins and a conference tournament bid (a top six finish in the CAA) in 2007.