Spartans Baseball Ready for Opening Day
With the first pitch of the 2024 season just days away, Cayuga Community College Baseball is ready to build on a record-setting 2023 and advance further into the postseason.
Cayuga enters the season coming off an excellent 2023 in which they set program records for wins (31) and winning percentage, and earned their second straight Mid-State Athletic Conference title. They finished third in the East Division of Region III before losing on the road in the postseason to Erie Community College.
Though they lost key contributors from the 2023 team, Coach John Rizzo is confident the 2024 version of the Spartans has the talent to match the success of the 2022 and 2023 teams.
"We're very athletic and very talented, but we need to prove ourselves on the field. We can't rely on the success we had the last two seasons," he said. "We're two-time defending conference champions. We're not going to lower our expectations. We want to get back to the playoffs, and hopefully make a deeper push."
A challenging schedule awaits the Spartans. They once again have a four-game series against Herkimer College, and they open the season at home on March 2 with a doubleheader against Niagara County Community College. Herkimer is ranked 8th in NJCAA Division III preseason polls, and the Thunderwolves are ranked 4th. They also have away doubleheaders with Finger Lakes Community College (40 wins in 2023) and Genesee Community College (30 wins in 2023).
The difficult schedule isn't new, noted Rizzo, and should serve the team well in the long run.
"Our division is always good. We play each team in the division, but we also wanted to make the rest of our schedule as difficult as possible. We want to challenge ourselves. That's where we'll see our team improve over the course of the season," said Rizzo.
The Spartans return several players who gained valuable experience in 2023. Three pitchers with two wins apiece last year — Christian Eddy, Brantley Griggs and Matt Rumney — are back for this season. At the plate, .300-plus hitters Perry Chetney, Bradley Diaz and Juan Perez return, as does second baseman Alex Gaudet, who was second on the 2023 squad with 31 RBI.
Some of the players returning from the 2023 team will take on bigger roles on the mound and at the plate, said Rizzo. He expects the Spartans' defense and baserunning to be strengths, with the lineup improving over the course of the season.
"Our returning players have set a good example for how we do things and how to be successful, and the new guys have followed their lead," said Rizzo. "We just need to be ourselves, play how we're capable of playing, limit our mistakes, and we should be fine."
After the opening doubleheader against Niagara, the Spartans host Tompkins Cortland Community College on March 5 before traveling to Maryland for contests against Cecil College and CCBC Catonsville. The regular season wraps up on May 5 with a road doubleheader at Mohawk Valley CC.
If the Spartans advance past the subregionals, they'll have the chance to play in the Region III Tournament at their home field at Falcon Park. The Auburn turf facility will host the Region III tourney and the NJCAA Division III World Series this year.