Baseball Opens Fall Practice
9/20/2006 12:00:00 AM | Baseball
CONWAY, S.C. – The Coastal Carolina University baseball team opened fall practice Sept. 19 with the annual Pro Day. The first day of fall drills will be Sept. 20 and will go until the annual Chanticleer World Series, which will take place from Oct. 6-9 at Watson Stadium/Vrooman Field.
The Chanticleers have named five captains for the following fall practice. Taking the captaincy role this fall are seniors Andy DeLaGarza (Ossian, ind./Norwell), Dom Duggan (Cranberry Twp., Pa./John Carroll) and Matt Rademacher (Bay Ctiy, MIch./Michigan) and sophomores Tyler Bortnick (Mentor, Ohio/Mentor) and Bobby Gagg (Hamburg, N.J./Wallkill).
The Chanticleers return experience in nearly every position and will have a pitching staff full of upperclassmen. The mix of experience and 15 newcomers excites Head Coach Gary Gilmore heading into the fall.
"We have quite a few returning seniors and starters from last year," Gilmore said. "We’re just trying to figure out the versatility of our guys, what pieces we possibly can mix.
"Two big keys for us is figuring out who is going to be our Friday night starter and who our key bullpen guys are going to be. I think so many of the other pieces fall into place. We were spoiled in 2005 when Ricky Shefka took Friday nights into his own hands and Mike Costanzo was one of the best closers in the game. We’re hoping some guys in this group can step forward and do that.
There were plenty of players who excelled in the collegiate summer leagues. Senior Matt Sutton (LaGrange, N.C./UNC Wilmington) was selected to the All-Star Game for the New England Collegiate Baseball League. Sophomore Creighton McCallum (Marion, S.C./The Citadel) was selected by Baseball America as the second-best prospect in the Southern Collegiate Baseball League.
"We had guys like Duggan, Sutton and David Sappelt have good summers," Gilmore said. "We had five or six pitchers have good summers. Their mental frame of mind and confidence is 180 degrees different from the beginning to the end of the season last year where some of them were."
Gilmore also looks to other pieces in the program that will help the Chanticleers for the upcoming season.
"The fun part of all of this is that not only do we have new players but we have a new weight program that I’ve never done before and I can alredy see positive results in 3 1/2 weeks," Gilmore stated. "Getting a full-time trainer in our program also has made a trememdous difference where the guys can consistently go to someone they have confidence in.
"I think we have a lot of positive things to build on," Gilmore concluded. "These kids expect to compete for Big South titles and to compete nationally and that’s what this fall is all about."
2006 Fall Roster
