Jennifer Hoffer – Sports Editor
The Owls went 2-0 in the City Series this year; defeating both Yale and University of New Haven. Rocco Cundari got the win for the Owls against Yale, which set them up with a date against University of New Haven to battle for the championship. The Owls would beat the Bulldogs 5-4 as pitcher Pat Egan would go on to throw six no-hit innings.
The Owls are a fairly young team this year, but senior pitcher, Rocco Cundari said he is excited to see how this team does this coming season.
“Overall I liked what I saw in the City Series,” Cundari said. “I know our pitchers will have quick innings. We don’t really have big hitters, so we move the runners around with infield singles, which produced runs for us in those two games.”
The Owls will be without Michael Cleary, Sam Greenberg and Kyle Cummings this season. So the new guys will have to fill their shoes.
“We’re very young,” Cundari said. “We have five or six seniors and everyone else is either a junior, sophomore or freshman. We have a couple of great young live arms and a new shortstop that can come in and fill a big hole when Sam Greenberg was here.”
Matt Burns will have to fill in Cleary’s sport as he is moving to centerfield.
“I have to pick up the slack, right where Cleary left off,” Burns said.
The reason for the Owls success over the past years has been their pitching.
“As long as I’ve known about Southern, its always been their pitching,” Cundari said. “We don’t give up many runs; we don’t give up many hits. Pitchers are constantly keeping us in the game.”
Burns said he believes that Southern has one of the best pitching staffs in the country.
“Our defense is always huge, and as long as we have are pitching coaches there with us,” Burns said, “We’ll be all set.”
Last season the Owls went 20-21-1. Regardless of the record, Cundari said he was very proud about the way they played.
“I felt that we were the biggest underdog in that tournament,” Cundari said. “We played against two Division I schools and matched up against the conference champion last year. I was very proud that we stepped up and achieved what we could.”
Not only are the Owls facing a slew of new players, but they also got a new coach. Nick Restaino will take over as Owls head coach. Restaino was a head coach at Fordham, but left after the 2010 season to pursue other opportunities.
He spent seven seasons with Fordham posting a 31-23-1 record in his last season with them.
Athletic Director Frank McLaughlin at Fordham said it was a pleasure to have him at the reins for the team.
“We are extremely thankful for Nick’s hard work and dedication to Fordham’s baseball program,” McLaughlin said.
Cundari said he is excited to start working with him and see what he can do with this team.
“He brings a lot of new knowledge to the game,” Cundari said. “I’m looking forward to seeing what he could do here and help us get a lot of wins.”
Entering the 2014 season, Cundari said he would like to work on keeping his walks down.
“That was my biggest disappointment,” Cundari said. “If I keep my walks down and throw a lot of strikes like I always do, that will definitely eliminate a lot of possible runners that could score.”
As for Burns, he said he just wants to get through a full season without getting hurt.
“I have to learn how to stay healthy,” Burns said. “I want to play the whole year this year.”
So until the season starts, the Owls will continue to work on their strong pitching in the offseason and make new relationships with the freshman to create an even stronger team.
