Of the 29 Cavaliers who were part of the first national championship program in Virginia baseball history, only 18 are returning for the 2016 season. Joining them will be 17 rookie players. With six star players from his program departing for the major leagues following their big win in Omaha, coach Brian O’Connor said that “year in and year out, you are relying on first-year players to make an impact, because we just lose so many players after three years to professional baseball.”
“We try to do some things every year to get those young, new players to get them to understand,” O’Connor said Monday at the team’s annual media day. “I think one of the best things you can do to have a successful program is… for it to be passed down from older players to younger players. You know, I can stand in front of them and tell them the things that need to be important or what they ought to do, but the best form of that is to come from those veteran players who have done it and have lived it.”
Senior catcher Robbie Coman is just one of three remaining fourth-years with the program. He laughed when asked about life as a first-year.
“As a first-year, you are walking around, they don’t really know what is going on,” he said. “So the only people you have to look at are the older guys.”
Coman, who played on the 2014 College World Series runner-up team, has had the opportunity to play alongside and learn from some of the most talented Cavaliers to ever come through the program.
“[I had] the tremendous opportunity to be around quite a few pretty good leaders and older guys,” Coman said. “[I remember] experiences of Jared King pulling me aside first-year, or Colin Harrington. Then that turned into Nick Howard and, you know, [Mike] Papi and [Derek] Fisher, and then last year with Kenny [Towns]. I mean, the guys who have been through this program have taught me a lot, that is for sure.”
Junior catcher Matt Thaiss said that he took plenty away from his elders by “following the lead of guys like Kenny Towns and Joe McCarthy and Thomas Woodruff” as an underclassman.
“[Now] guys like me and Robbie Coman are seeing what we have to do,” Thaiss said. “Older guys like us have to step up and show them what to do, you know, how to do it the right way, and I think that is a really big responsibility for us, but I think it is very important to our team as well.”
Coman said he understands the importance of sharing his past experiences with the younger players.
“Now I am just trying to spread the things that I’ve learned and that I know to the younger generation,” Coman said. “I try to make a conscious effort, you know, anything that I can do to help… been around it for four years, so I kinda got the gist of things.”
O’Connor described the team as “a pretty tight knit group,” and expects that “some of those young kids… are going to make some immediate impact.”
The newest Cavaliers will be put to the test at their season opener this weekend in Myrtle Beach, S.C. against Kent State. He expects three rookies to start in field positions, in addition to seeing freshman LHP Daniel Lynch take the mound Saturday.
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