VIDEO: Eastern Florida State Titans Baseball Team Has Reloaded, Ready For 2017 Season
By Michael Parsons, EFSC Sports // January 22, 2017
finished second in Southern Conference in 2016
ABOVE VIDEO: Relive one of last year’s EFSC Titans baseball games vs. the Broward Seahawks. (EFSC video)
BREVARD COUNTY • MELBOURNE, FLORIDA – The Eastern Florida State College baseball team has reloaded and looks to build on last season’s results.
That group finished second in the Southern Conference and advanced to the NJCAA District/FCSAA Tournament.
“We were real close last year and the returning sophomores saw that, we put everything we had into the season and now we are more mature and know what we have to do to be even better,” sophomore Gabriel Rodriguez said.
“As a whole we just wanted to win games last year and we have carried that over to this year.”
Rodriguez will be part of a pitching staff that head coach Jeff Tam expects to be just as good as last year’s staff that had a 3.26 earned run average.
“I believe it is just a matter of logging innings,” Tam said.
“We don’t have as many innings returning as we did last season and had some other big arms that came in but we have that again this year. That is the difference maker for us, having those transfers come in.”
“We don’t have as many innings returning as we did last season and had some other big arms that came in but we have that again this year. That is the difference maker for us, having those transfers come in.”
One of those transfers is Ryan Lang, who comes back to Brevard County after pitching for Florida Gulf Coast University last season. The
The right-hander from Merritt Island made 18 appearances for FGCU including eight starts, striking out 34 hitters in 64 innings including outings against Florida and Florida State.
“You can’t teach that experience,” Tam said.
“Gabriel, Ryan, (Chancellor) Benton. These are the guys that are going to have to step up and flat get it done for us.”
Offensively, the Titans hit .326 as a team last season and believe this year’s offense could be even better.
“Last year I was a little skeptical about our bats and we were a tremendous hitting team and I can already see that we are ahead of the game on the offensive side this season,”
Tam said. “It is very exciting but we are going to face some tough pitching both in our conference and outside the conference, that’s just the way it is.
“We are excited to get going in about a week.”
The Titans will open the season on the road Friday afternoon, traveling to South Florida State College before hosting Polk State on Saturday, Jan. 28 for the home opener at 1 p.m.
Admission to games at Bruce Bochy Field on the Melbourne campus is free
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