We are now into our fourth week of Northeast Conference play and the Blackbirds are in the thick of things. After stumbling out of the gate 0-4 after one week of conference play, the Blackbirds have taken three out of four from Fairleigh Dickinson and split last weekend’s series with Sacred Heart, 2-2. The Blackbirds sit at 5-7 in conference play and are 5-3 in their last eight NEC games.

Seniors Kenny Cedel and Gerard Tingos had big games on Friday versus Sacred Heart. Cedel went eight innings strong allowing two runs while striking out nine. Tingos hit a grand slam in the second inning to give the Blackbirds a big early lead. Drew Walsh, Chris Kievit, Tito Marrero and Julian Castro all collected two hits each in the 10-4 win.

The game three victory featured a fine performance by freshman sensation Justin Topa. Topa was in total command before running into some slight trouble in the last inning of a complete-game 8-5 victory. Topa didn’t issue a walk and struck out 11 hitters en route to his third win of the season. Other weekend highlights were two home runs by Kievit, a two-run home run by Marrero as well as tape measure solo shot by Derek Stupski.

The Blackbirds will continue NEC play this weekend when we travel to Quinnipiac for an important four-game set. The starting rotation for the weekend will be: 

Friday Game 1: Kenny Cedel (LHP/Sr.)
Saturday Game 2: Adam Sauter (LHP/Jr.)
Saturday Game 3: Justin Topa (RHP/Fr.)
Sunday Game 4: Chris Franzese (RHP/Fr.)

If you want to follow the Blackbirds this upcoming season please visit our web site at: www.liuathletics.com/baseball  or you can also follow us on Twitter at LIU www.twitter.com/liubaseball.

The Northeast Conference begins play today as we are set to embark on a 32-game conference schedule that will test our strengths and weaknesses as a ball club. “The conference schedule is what it’s all about” said Coach Maines in a non-magniloquent manner. “This is why we have 6:00 a.m. weight lifting sessions, 6:00 a.m. bullpens, late-night fall practice and spring trips – all to prepare for conference play.”

Our first 14 games have taught our young club a few things and we believe the Blackbirds are ready for the Northeast Conference. We have shown the ability to put some runs on the board against some very good pitchers and we have shown we can get good hitters out as well. Now’s the time to have the two mesh together. Going into the weekend we are confident that we have what it takes to be competitive in the Northeast Conference. Will it be easy? Absolutely not, but we wouldn’t want it any other way. Our guys battle, they scrap, they play hard. It’s the only way they know. This group has shown some great characteristics of a playoff team and we expect that to continue to fester over the coming weeks.

The weekend rotation for our series with Wagner College will feature RHP Chris Franzese getting the start on Friday. Saturday we will go with LHP Adam Sauter and RHP Justin Topa in the doubleheader. Sunday’s anchor will be LHP Matt McCormick. All of these guys compete. They are aggressive, throw strikes and do a good job controlling the running game. LHP Kenny Cedel, LHP Paul Lopez, RHP Evan Zerff, RHP Emerson Morillo and RHP Gerard Tingos form an extremely capable bullpen going into the weekend.

Offensively, we are beginning to come out of our shell. This past week we hit three home runs against Manhattan including freshman Tito Marrero’s first collegiate home run. Junior centerfielder Sam Sciamarelli hit his first career home run as well and had hits from both sides of the plate in the game. Senior Gregory Blaise DeSantis saw his season begin to turn around with a 3-for-5 performance including a pair of doubles (hence the new nickname “3-for-5”). Gregory is an important part of our offense and it was great to see him having fun again this past week and get back to keeping the game simple.

Conference… this is what it’s all about. Let the games begin. Go Blackbirds!

If you want to follow the Blackbirds this upcoming season please visit our Web site at: www.liuathletics.com/baseball or you can also follow us on Twitter at www.twitter.com/liubaseball.

We returned to campus last night at 2:00 a.m. from our opening weekend against Canisius in Kannapolis, N.C. All and all it was a disappointing weekend with a 1-3 record. We had a chance to gain at least a split of the series on Sunday but just didn’t close the door. For the weekend we had a few defensive miscues (seven errors), a lack of timely hitting (35 LOB) and too many walks/HBP (nine on Sunday). That combination allows teams to crawl back into a game when they’re down and beat you. We felt like we could have picked up three wins against a very good opponent and just didn’t get the job done. However, we had some encouraging moments as well.

Overall we did an outstanding job of getting guys on base and getting deep into our opponents bullpen. That will bode well for us offensively if we can continue that trend as the season rolls along. Our leadoff hitter Gerard Tingos and two-hole hitter Sam Sciamarelli combined for 12 hits and eight walks on the weekend. Sophomore Drew Walsh hit a grand slam on Sunday with Derek Stupski and Tyler Jones having some key hits for us as well. Freshman Tito Marrero picked up his first collegiate base hit and stolen base along with drawing four walks in his three starts.

From a pitching standpoint, the Blackbirds had a pretty good weekend. We were able to get three quality starts from Kenny Cedel, Adam Sauter and Justin Topa. Topa earned his first collegiate win and Evan Zerff had two stellar outings out of the pen and earned his first career save. The Northeast Conference recognized Topa as its Rookie of the Week. Freshmen Emerson Morillo, Brad Reimer and Luke Hammond all had successful debuts as Blackbirds. Juniors Joe Murphy and Danny Iglesias also threw scoreless innings on Sunday to get us some needed holds. We held a very good offensive club to 14 earned runs and seven extra base hits in the four games with a .268 batting average. We were able to show some of the depth that we have on the mound and get all of our freshmen their first game action.

Now we turn our sites to another tough opponent in the ACC’s Virginia Tech. They have a very talented ballclub and seem to be off on the right foot early in the season. It’s going to be a great weekend of baseball in an awesome atmosphere at Viriginia Tech. The guys are excited about visiting Blacksburg and are looking forward to a great four-game set.

If you want to follow the Blackbirds this season please visit our Web site at: www.liuathletics.com/baseball or you can track us on Twitter at twitter.com/liubaseball.

Baseball teams in the Northeast always endure the wrath of Mother Nature and this year has been no different. All I can say is thank God for Field Turf! The combination of warmer temperatures and some enthusiastic shoveling allowed us to get some of the early season kinks out before we open up this Friday in North Carolina. It’s raining today but we are still able to get outside… like I said, thank God for Field Turf.

Offensively, we return a solid core of hitters in Chris Kievit, Greg DeSantis, Gerard Tingos and Tyler Jones. In addition, we are expecting a breakout year from sophomores Derek Stupski and Drew Walsh. Defensively ,we will be solid up the middle with Tyler Jones/Chris Kievit catching, Greg DeSantis at short, Gerard Tingos at second and Sam Sciamarelli patrolling center field. Newcomers Tito Marrero, Albert Faz and Matt Valle will all be depended upon to make contributions both offensively and defensively. We will play better defense as a team and be more of a station-to-station type club this year offensively. Overall, thoug, I believe we have better balance as a ballclub.

On the mound we have fifth-year Senior Kenny Cedel as our Friday starter and juco transfer/returnee Adam Sauter as one of our Saturday starters anchoring the staff. We need those two guys to go out and pitch to their abilities for us to compete in the Northeast Conference. Seniors Matt Owens and redshirt juniors Jesse Johnson and Paul Lopez will all be looked to for important outs in middle relief/starter roles. Newcomers Justin Topa, Matthew McCormick, Emerson Morillo, Chris Franzese and Brad Reimer will all compete for quality innings as freshmen. Evan Zerff, Luke Hammond, Joe Murphy, Danny Iglesias and returning closer Gerard Tingos (five saves in 2009) will carry the workload from the sixth inning on for us. I believe our depth as a staff gives us an opportunity to be in games late. If we are up a run, down a run or tied late in games, we feel really good about our chances to compete for the win. We have the ability to match up with teams and give them some different looks and overall as a staff and at this point we are healthy.

The first few weekend series (Canisius and Virginia Tech), our Spring Trip (Army, Dartmouth and North Dakota State) and weekday games versus Manhattan and St. John’s will offer our staff an opportunity to see some really good offensive and overall clubs before the end of March. Tough early season out-of-conference scheduling is important to try and prepare your team for a conference season. We’re looking forward to the challenge and having a great 2010 season.

If you want to follow the Blackbirds this upcoming season please visit our Web site at: www.liuathletics.com/baseball or you can also follow us on Twitter at www.twitter.com/liubaseball.

-Coach Noto

The 2010 season is around the corner…

Can you smell it? The fresh cut grass? The chalk from the base lines? Spring Training is here and the 2010 season is right around the corner. We are just two weeks away from our season-opening series in Kannapolis, N.C., against the Golden Griffins of Canisius College. Our team is excited and eager to play that first game, however, there’s still a lot of work to do.

So far, practice has been very productive for us as a team. Thanks to the weather, we have been fortunate enough to be able to get out on our field for team defense. Reviewing bunt defenses, run downs, first and third plays and relays on the field is a much better option then doing them indoors. The pitchers have been throwing early morning bullpens and doing a great job in the weight room. The position players are getting their cuts in and working diligently on their defensive game. The guys have been working hard and the team chemistry has been awesome.

The Blackbirds have gotten some great leadership out of our upperclassmen and have received great efforts from our freshmen so far this year. Coach Maines has stressed preparation, attention to detail, communication and mental toughness to our team on what seems to be a minute-to-minute basis. He explains every day that the college baseball season is a marathon, not a sprint. Last year we were 4-4 and in second place in the NEC after two weeks of conference play. Feeling good about ourselves, knowing that if we pitched, played defense and continued to swing the bats well, we’d be fighting for a playoff spot six weeks down the road. Over the next few weeks we sustained some injuries to our pitching staff and just never overcame the adversity. The reminder of the season being a marathon and not a sprint was never clearer to our team. From all bad comes good and our season was a learning experience. Our team has done a great job on learning from last year and turning the page to the future.

Before I go, congratulations to the New Orleans Saints for winning their first Super Bowl title. It’s great to see New Orleans have something to celebrate after all of the hurt they have endured since Katrina. Who dat!

-Coach Noto