With a new season about to get underway this Friday, the baseball team is thinking streak.
That streak would be the 16 consecutive winning seasons that the Jumbos have recorded. As the team prepares to embark on its annual spring break trip to Virginia and North Carolina, the Jumbos' primary goals are to keep that streak intact and build off of their 2008 efforts, which led to a third-place finish in the NESCAC Tournament.
Senior infielder and co-captain Kevin Casey said he wants the team to "improve on last year's performance" in his final year at Tufts.
"Most of all, though, we don't want to end the streak," he said.
Winning season number 17 will not come easily, however. Casey and fellow co-captain, junior catcher Alex Perry, admitted that the team will miss 2008 NESCAC Player of the Year Steve Ragonese (LA '08), as well as pitchers Adam Telian (LA '08) and Jason Protano (LA '08), who played key roles on the team and graduated last year as members of a select group of Jumbos who played on NESCAC Tournament teams in each of their four years at Tufts.
But with the other seven starting position players returning and a promising crop of young pitchers ready to step in, Casey and Perry are optimistic about carrying on the team's winning tradition, as is coach John Casey.
"Someone always steps up -- that's the mark of a strong program," he said. "We don't know who it will be, but these guys want to win, and each of them can help us do it."
A pitching staff comprised mainly of freshmen and sophomores could make or break the team, but the veteran skipper was quick to silence any doubts.
"Age doesn't make any difference," Coach Casey said. "The key is throwing strikes."
Sophomore right-hander and All-NESCAC selection Pat O'Donnell used that motto to post a 6-2 record and 3.02 ERA in his freshman campaign, and he returns as the ace of this year's staff.
"We know
[O'Donnell] is going
to be around
the strike zone," Coach Casey said. "We're also looking for [sophomore righty Jack Dilday] to improve and [sophomore righty] Chase Rose to be a quality third starter. The rest of the guys, we're going to see who steps up and go from there. They're young, but they can get it done."
Coach Casey was similarly optimistic about the offense, which returns its entire starting lineup with the exception of Ragonese. While supplanting the remarkable production Ragonese provided in his senior campaign -- a .425 batting average with 14 doubles, nine homers and a gaudy 1.292 OPS -- will be nearly impossible, Coach Casey is confident that his lineup will feature quality hitters from top to bottom.
"[Sophomore Ian Goldberg] has a full season under his belt, and he did a great job leading off for us last year," Coach Casey said. "We also have [junior first baseman] Corey Pontes, Casey, Perry and Rose -- they all hit well over .300 for us. And we'll get [junior second baseman] Nate Bankoff back, who we thought was going to hit in the middle of our lineup before he hurt his wrist."
Clearly, the potential for success is there in both the lineup and the pitching staff. But that success won't come easily, and the challenges begin right away. While the Jumbos have spent the vast majority of their practices indoors at Carzo Cage, their season-opening road trip will pit them against teams that have had regular access to fields and a dozen games already under their belts. The Jumbos will return home to begin NESCAC play with a three-game set against the Bates Bobcats on March 27.
"We're going to play some tough teams -- we're playing [Lynchburg College], the 24th-ranked team in the country, on Friday," Coach Casey told his players in a team meeting following Sunday evening's practice. "But whether you're playing the '27 Yankees or the worst team ever fielded, you play the same way."
