The Lancer men's baseball team had their first official practice on Sunday, Feb. 1. The field echoed with the sounds of batting practice and catcher's mitts popping in the bullpen.
Head coach Buddy Bolding, entering his 31st year coaching the team, could be heard by all the players on the diamond. "All a fly ball does is make a pitcher's day easy," Bolding said to his players while throwing batting practice. It's one of the many things Bolding is emphasizing while preparing his team for the upcoming season.
Lancer Stadium's facilities were upgraded during the offseason. A new locker room was built, fully equipped with showers, a flat screen television, Xbox, individual lockers and couches. The environment in the clubhouse will allow teammates to relax and get prepared for their games against visiting opponents.
Longwood has a challenging schedule for the 2009 season. "One of our big games is when we travel down to UNC. They're preseason-ranked No. 1 in the country. I'd say it's probably the biggest game on the schedule this year," said Assistant Coach Sean Abell. "Outside of that, we play games against University of Richmond, Old Dominion, Virginia Commonwealth and William and Mary. Those are always big games for us. We want to perform well against in-state schools."
With the graduation of Rob Moody, John Farrell and Nick Von Gersdorff, the team will be looking for the incoming freshman class to step it up.
"We have a total of eight freshmen. All of them are going to see the field at some point. We're looking at three of them starting for us this year. They are all very good and capable of starting for us. . It's going to be a collective effort from all of them," Abell said of the rookies.
Freshman Robbie Newman will be the starting designated hitter for the Lancers. At 6-feet-two-inches and 207 lbs., Newman brings power to the Longwood lineup. He broke a district record during his senior season of high school, collecting 12 home runs while captain of his team. He will be hitting in the five hole for the Lancers.
Fellow freshman Dustin Sollars will be starting in right field for the Lancers. Sollars made the first-team all-district and all-region his senior year of high school, powering three home runs. Sollars is listed as the eight hitter for the team.
Richie Palase, the third freshman starter, is starting at shortstop for Longwood, a position that changed frequently among players last season. Palase will provide strength up the middle with returning sophomore second baseman Brant Jones. Palase was an ADVANCE All Star while playing in high school and will hit ninth in the Lancer lineup.
This season, the team will be led by captain Phil Cerreto. Leading the team with a .395 batting average last year and earning VaSID All State second-team honors, Cerreto will be looked to for on-field leadership throughout the season. He will be hitting third in the Lancer lineup and playing third base.
"He led the team in hitting last year and he's one of our go-to guys." said Abell. "Casey Havers, our starting first baseman, is our four-hole hitter. He is a big power threat in our lineup and were going to look for him to carry us this year," Abell said of his returning leaders.
The Lancers' pitching rotation will be similar to that of last year. The squad lost three senior pitchers, only one of whom was a starter. Longwood returns junior Lance Harting (6-4, 3.04 ERA), sophomore Chris Briere (2-3, 3.67 ERA, team-leading 43 K's) and senior John Walker II (6-4, 4.57 ERA).
"We have a very good pitching staff with a lot of guys that can throw a lot of competitive innings for us. We have senior John Walker II, a couple of sophomores in Chris Briere and Garret Lythgoe, and Lance Harting out of the bullpen who's our go-to guy," said Abell. Also during the off-season, the team added a new assistant coach. Erik Suplee is the Lancers' new pitching coach, bringing in an experienced background in pitching. Suplee was a four-year pitcher for Marist College in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., where he earned a bachelor of arts in history. After graduating in 2007, Suplee served as both an assistant coach and camp coordinator at Millersville University in Pennsylvania for the 2007-2008 season. This past summer, he served as an assistant coach for the Lehigh Valley (PA) Catz of the Atlantic Collegiate Baseball League.
"I got the chance to meet him a few years ago, and when we were looking for a pitching coach he was the first one to pop in my head," said Abell. "He's done a great job so far. He was a successful pitcher in college and brings a very good mentality to our pitching staff and a very good work ethic as well."
Senior starting catcher Jon Quigley has been working with pitchers throughout the off-season so they are ready to take the mound in a few short weeks. "We still have a young pitching staff this year, so mainly I've just been working on team camaraderie. We have to make sure the pitchers have confidence in the catching core and that they know that they can't be afraid to bounce a ball and that we're going to block it and back them up," said Quigley.
During the off-season, the team put a lot of their focus into conditioning. "Last year we kind of got tired at the end of the season. You can look at how we finished the season last year and see the fatigue set in. So this year we put a lot of emphasis on team conditioning. We did a lot of hitting work, and the pitchers did a lot of throwing to keep their arms in shape and a lot of mechanical stuff to help them improve," said Abell.
The team opens its season with an eight-game home stand. Their first game is at Lancer Stadium on Friday, Feb. 20 against Delaware at 1 p.m. The Lancers play Delaware three more times over the weekend, before the Spiders of the University of Richmond and Monarchs of ODU visit on back-to-back days for midweek afternoon games. Le Moyne (N.Y.) will travel to Farmville to close out the Lancers' home stand before the team hits the road for No. 1 U.N.C for a 3 p.m. game against the Tar Heels on March 3.
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