On paper, it looked like a rebuilding year.
Coach John Casey's baseball team had to deal with a multitude of obstacles this season, losing players left and right to graduation, transfer and injury.
Last year's team graduated two All-NESCAC hitters, Jim O'Leary and tri-captain Greg Chertok, as well as the workhorse of its pitching staff, Zak Smotherman, and outfielder Brian McDonough transferred to Div. I Marist after his freshman year.
The Jumbos then opened 2007 without two more of their stars - senior tri-captain Ben Simon, who broke his arm pitching in a fall league game, and senior Aaron Narva, who was the team's closer in 2005 but has struggled with elbow troubles ever since. Once the season got underway, they lost one more senior - outfielder Kyle Backstrom, who suffered a broken hand - and then filled his spot in the three-hole with another senior, tri-captain Bryan McDavitt, who was soon sidelined as well with tightness in his calf.
Through it all, the Jumbos persevered, and they still recorded 25 wins, their highest total since the program's record-breaking total of 27 victories in 2002. The team finished the regular season with a 10-2 NESCAC East record, the league's best mark in division play, and advanced all the way to the conference title game, ultimately falling 8-5 to Williams, a loss that left Tufts just short of a trip to the NCAA Tournament. All this from a team that lost more talent than most teams even have to lose.
"Guys really started getting up and responding when we had some adversity," said senior tri-captain Brian Casey, who replaced both Chertok as leadoff hitter and Narva as closer. "I think we had a lot to deal with this season, and people did a good job stepping up when we needed them."
Offensively, the Jumbos were the second- highest-scoring team in the NESCAC East last year, but they were an entirely different team when they took the field in 2007. They were without Chertok, who hit .367 and stole nine bases, McDonough, who slugged four homers as a freshman, and Backstrom, who led the team with 12 steals. Most importantly, they were forced to adjust to the loss of O'Leary, who terrorized NESCAC pitchers last season with a dazzling .467/.565/.682 clip.
"Losing Jim O'Leary last year, he was a tough guy to replace," senior Chris Decembrele said. "But with McDavitt in the lineup, he's always been a staple, and then a lot of young guys stepped up and supported him. Those guys were a pleasant surprise, and they're a big reason for our success this year."
While McDavitt was healthy for most of the season, playing 31 of the team's 36 games and hitting .374, his production at the plate was nothing new. The team's big surprises were freshman Corey Pontes, who hit a team-high .411, sophomore Dave Katzman, who led the squad with 10 steals, and junior Steve Ragonese, whose nine homers and 39 RBI not only led the Jumbos, but threatened Tufts' all-time records.
On the mound, the Jumbos also had to revamp. Their three-man rotation of Smotherman, Simon and then-junior Derek Rice was dismantled after last year, and Rice returned as a senior alongside two new starters in 2007, juniors Adam Telian and Jason Protano.
"Telian and Protano did a great job stepping in and being starters this year," said Decembrele, who caught the Jumbo pitching staff in the majority of his 33 games. "It's a real testament to Ben Simon, and how he handled the staff."
While Simon's arm injury kept him sidelined for the entire year - with the exception of the regular-season finale against Babson, when he surprised everyone with a pinch-hit single in his only career at-bat - he stayed on as somewhat of a pitching coach. He monitored the pitchers' progress from the bullpen, and played an integral role in developing the young staff.
"As a staff, I think they did a great job," Decembrele said. "Again, that's a testament to Simon - while he didn't play this year, he stepped in and worked a lot at building those younger guys. I'm just fortunate to step in and be the guy who gets to catch their strikes."
The "younger guys" included three freshmen - Jordan Goldberg, Thomas Hill and David Gibbs - who threw a combined 72 innings, the vast majority of them out of the bullpen. They were joined in the bullpen by Casey, who earned four saves after stepping into the closer role, and senior Carlos Lopez.
"We had some questions coming into this year with pitching," Casey said. "But Gibbs, and Goldberg, and Tommy Hill all came in and did what we needed them to. And [Lopez] did a good job [in the NESCAC Tournament] as well, both pitching the Sunday game and coming in in relief Friday. Our three starters did an awesome job all season, and after them, people were answering the call when we needed it."
In the end, the result was a 25-win season, the first in the careers of the Class of 2007. And while next year's squad will have to deal with several key losses, that's obviously nothing new for the Jumbos. Coach Casey's team should be stacked again next season.
"I'm extremely confident in those guys," Decembrele said. "Any team Coach Casey puts out there is going to be a competitive one. Losing Brian Casey and losing McDavitt is going to be tough. But guys always have to go, and it always leaves openings for younger guys to step up."
