The Bucks Centurions Baseball team starts their season on March 4th at 1 p.m. and 4 p.m. The first two games of the year will be played at Eastern University-JV and the first home game on March 11th against Penn State Fayette.
The Bucks Baseball team was 28-23-1 last season and had an impressive .320 batting average. The team has bats up and down the lineup and coach CJ Brancato said, “We set a team record for runs (375) scored last year. We would love to break that again, but our focus is to have as many quality at-bats as possible and make it tough on opposing pitchers.”
Usually, a team doesn’t keep almost the entire team together, but this team has. Coach Brancato said “We have 17 players back from last season. They all will be key to our team’s success.”
Coaches know winning is better than not and when you win it is easy to have fun. Brancato says the goal for the season is “win 30 plus games, win the ESAC, qualify for the USCAA World Series, and have fun doing it.”
The team has two starters that will lead the pitching rotation: Max Temple and Jordan Sesar. Brancato said, “Max is a classic bulldog pitcher.” He also said this about Jordan: “Another key to our pitching. He throws the baseball hard but to improve he’ll need to be more consistent.” He also said, “We are much more than a two-man show as we also have Brian Williams, Marc Garcia, Christian Culver and Liam Delguerico amongst others who will throw heavy innings for the team.”
The team’s offense that broke the team run record is looking to break it again with Dalton Turner and Bubba Comer. Brancato had to say this about both these guys: “They do it in different ways but are steady performers and leaders within the team.”
If the team wants to break the run record in a season again, they are going to need more than just Dalton and Bubba, but the coach believes his guys will do it. Brancato said, “Look out for big seasons from Isaac Criss, Nick Lombardo, Anthony Bencardino and Josh McGee.”
The team has more than just two guys pitching and two hitting; they have quality and quantity. Brancato said, “Each of these guys has what it takes to be an all-conference or all-American type pitcher.” He then listed the names of Max Temple, Brian Williams, Marc Garcia, Jordan Sesar, Anthony Bencardino, Christian Culver and Matt Futer, as he stated, “There are more guys that will do a great job this year.”
The offense needs guys to get on base to affect the pitcher and for other guys to drive them in. Brancato said these guys will be getting on: Bubba Comer, Nick Lombardo, Isaac Criss, Marc Garcia and Christian Jimenez. And the guys he said to lead the team with runs batted in are Anthony Bencardino, Dalton Turner, Josh McGee, Corey DiMario and Felix Galarza.