By Mike DeSanto
Sports Editor
The St. Bonaventure University baseball team has faced its fair share of offensive struggles through the first 13 games of the season. The Bonnies (6-7) have gone through stretches of low run production, including being shutout 10-0 by North Dakota State on March 10.
Head coach Larry Sudbrook said he wasn’t sure why the team struggled but understands that it’s par for the course.
“If I knew, we wouldn’t be up and down, we’d just be up. I think it’s a part of sports that there is some times when a guy that shoots 42-43 percent from three-point range comes out and goes 1-for-9 from the field,” Sudbrook said. “As a coach you are like ‘what? What the [heck] happened?’ Who knows? We felt like the first two games out pitched us, out hit us, out fielded us; they completely dominated the game, we just didn’t play well at all. Then we come out in game three and we look like the ’27 Yankees.”
But recently, a trio of junior players have been the Bonnies’ saving grace.
Third baseman David “Bubba” Hollins, outfielder Dave Vaccaro and shortstop Cole Peterson have continued to help keep the offense alive, as was evident in the weekend series at Davidson from March 17 to 19.
Hollins, a transfer from St. Petersburg College in St. Petersburg, Florida, went 8-for-12 with two home runs and nine runs batted in over the three games. His breakout performance came in the third game, a 17-4 Bonnies win, when he went a perfect 6-for-6 with a home run, three doubles, three runs scored and eight RBIs.
“For me, just trying to clear my head, relax, get a good pitch to hit and put a good swing on it; hope it finds a hole,” Hollins said.
Sudbrook said Hollins’ performance showed a strong improvement from his numbers early in the year, allowing him to provide more of the offense they expected.
“Going into that game (game three) he was hitting .220-.230 and he’s one of the guys that we expected to be a big hitter for us,” Sudbrook said. “He was highly successful at a very good junior college [and] he’s been highly successful in the summer leagues. When we entered this series we had dropped him into the six-hole, until that third game. We put him back in the four-hole that day because the day or two before that, he had started swinging the bat better and [junior pitcher/ first baseman Aaron Phillips] wasn’t swinging it a lick.”
Peterson also went 8-for-12 against Davidson, scoring five times and driving in pair of runs with a home run and three doubles to his credit.
“Just going up with an approach, an idea of getting the right pitch that we want to hit, and that’s what I did this weekend,” Peterson said. “I got some pitches I wanted to hit and drove it; just put the bat on the ball.”
Peterson’s role in the lineup has changed, according to Sudbrook, and he now bats in third in the lineup, which works better to his style.
“When Cole first came here as a freshman, he batted in the two-hole for us mostly because we had worked with him or talked with him a lot about being able to take walks, push a bunt, drag a bunt, have a high on-base percentage, and he did a nice job of that,” Sudbrook said. “He really doesn’t have a leadoff or two-hole mentality of ‘my job is to get on base.’ He goes up there now with ‘my job is to get a hit.’ So we’ve put him more in an RBI position.”
Vaccaro struggled the first two games of the series, going hitless and driving in one run on a sacrifice fly in game two. But he, like his teammates, broke out in game three with two hits in five at bats, scoring twice and driving in two on a home run.
“I think towards the end of the weekend, we really started to see the ball better,” Vaccaro said. . “We realized they really didn’t have the pitching that could beat us, so that Sunday we just exploded as a team, so it was good to finish the weekend off right.”
Sudbrook sees Vaccaro’s improvement at the plate over the last year, saying he has built up momentum since joining the Bonnies last season.
“Last year, I think he was one of those guys that got off to a slow start facing Division I pitching and struggled a little bit with his mental approach,” Vaccaro said. “He had a good summer, he ended the summer really strong in summer ball and he’s carried that over into being a much better hitter for us this year.”
The Bonnies will hit the road this weekend to face Saint Louis in a three game series, beginning on Friday at 7 p.m.
desantmj13@bonaventure.edu
