FAU baseball has started off on the right foot winning four of their first six games. The team nearly won five but could not finish a late inning comeback in the series opener against Texas Christian University losing the game 11-10. Though the team beat Cincinnati in all three of the games they played against them the coach still felt like they were a good experience for his team. “I feel Cincinnati’s pitching was challenging,” Coach said. Cincinnati showed a non traditional pitching style trying not to over power FAU hitters but rather trying to throw the hitters timing off with change-up pitches and erratic moving balls. “TCU has more traditional pitchers,” says Cooney.
Coach feels that each team brought about a different challenge for FAU each valuable in their own way. TCU turned out to be the tougher opponent in the end defeating FAU two out of three games. FAU did win Saturday’s game behind a dominant pitching performance from Mike Crotta who pitched six strong innings striking out a career high 10 batters while leading his team to victory.
Strong play from players like Tim Mascia on offense has been one of the main reason that FAU has started off the season strong. Mascia earned the honor of Atlantic Sun Conference player of the week for his play against Cincinnati. Mascia went 7 for 13 on the series for a .538 batting average with five runs batted in and four stolen bases. “Mascia is our best base runner,” said Cooney. He describes him not as the team’s fastest player but as the team’s smartest runner who gets the best jumps and really knows how to run the bases. To go along with Mascia’s contributions on offense teammate Jordan Hafner has also posted a .320 average thus far with seven RBI’s and a home run. Cooney was also impressed with the way the team played under pressure. “I like how we didn’t panic when we were behind,” Coach said. Even some of the younger players showed cool and calm heads during the close games. “Danny Cook played very well,” Coach said. “He has shown one of the best freshmen performances I’ve seen.” Cook played in his first collegiate games against Cincinnati. Mainly used as a pinch runner late in games as well as for his defense at third base, Cook did not get a whole lot of playing time, but still managed to impress his coach and score three runs in the first games that he got in. “He didn’t go out like a wide eyed freshman,” said Coach who was pleased with the way he handled himself on the field.
Along with the play of the younger guys, Coach Cooney also was pleased with the play of his bullpen, especially Allen McKnight who has posted a 0.00 ERA with six strikeouts in his first four appearances of the season.
