By River Mitchell
@rivermitchell27
Here at Springfield College, the heavy emphasis on overall athletics is extremely prominent as soon as you step foot on campus. Whether you’re competing at the NCAA level yourself, or going to the games as a fan, a large portion of the campus has their college experience centered around athletics in one way or another.
Every time a new season starts for one of the teams, a buzz swarms the campus like a colony of bees swarming a hive. For the Springfield College baseball team, they hope to bring the same buzz for campus after a season that ended in disappointing fashion.
The Pride finished up last season with an overall record of 14-20-1, with 2 gut wrenching losses to end the season. The losses came against Coast Guard on a 11-2 final score, and got blown out by MIT 14-2 in the first round of the NEWMAC Championship Tournament. However, even with the less than desirable record, I believe that this team could surprise a lot of people enroute to a very successful season. Head coach Mark Simeone also believes the constructed roster has the talent to play up to their expectation with overall consistency being the main point of improvement.
“We’ve got what I believe is a deep, talented team. Now I thought that last year [but] we didn’t play that well consistently,” Simeone said. “All of our returning players recognize that. There seems to be a real focus on playing better this year and achieving what we think we’re capable of.”
This year, the Pride are going with a new leadership style, going into the season without designated captains and instead going with a style that involves everybody leaving another.
“My decision to do that is directly reflective of what players say to me,” Simeone said. “It is an expectation and responsibility of all of our players to assume leadership and build an environment in which a freshman [or] a non-starter can step up and say something that he feels is in the best interest of the team.”
Many of the players on the team have approved of the new leadership style that Coach Simeone has put into place. Right handed pitcher Connor Caverly is one of them.
“Definitely I think it’s a good thing,” Caverly said. “We have a lot of great leaders so it’s good to hear everybody’s voice and everybody can have a say.”
Another reason that members of the Springfield College community should be excited is the large number of prior seniors returning for their fifth year. Simeone believes that this will be greatly beneficial for the team overall.
“We’ve got six or seven graduate students playing for us,” Simeone said. “That’s atypical, but certainly brings experience and guys that have been around for a while. So I think if we use that the right way, that could benefit us.”
However, some seniors decided to hang it up and forgo their fifth year. Cadin Maynard, who was the all time career batting average leader for the Pride, will definitely leave some big shoes to fill for the players coming in behind him.
“Cadin was just a rock solid person, teammate, leader, and an excellent player,” Simeone said. “But I think our guys are up for the challenge.”
Even with the absence of one of his teammates, Caverly also feels that the roster coming into the season has the makings to compete at a high level.
“[I’m] definitely excited,” Caverly said. “We got some veterans coming back [and] a lot of new guys who I think will make a big difference. I’m definitely excited. Looking forward to the year.”
At the end of the day, both Caverly and Simeone believe that members of the Springfield College community should be excited about the upcoming year, directly pointing to the young core and overall talent on the roster.
“We have a talented, athletic, deep group,” Simeone said. “Any day you [come to] Archie Allen Field in the spring, you’re likely to see a tremendous play, a tremendous game and a tremendous group working together to be successful.”
“I think we got a lot of new life being brought back into the team,” Caverly said. “I think we got a lot of people who are ready to work towards something special.”