Hofstra hopes for traction off Miami win

Spring break may have come and gone, but the party was just getting started in South Beach for the Hofstra baseball team.

That the biggest win in program history had improved the team's record to a mere 12-29 last Sunday was only more reason to celebrate.

"People look at our record and say, 'That's not turning the program around,' " Hofstra coach Pat Anderson said. "But you don't really know exactly what's going on from the outside looking in. Everybody inside knows that there's a lot of quality things going on here."

One indication of the Pride's progress came when Hofstra earned that 5-0 win over the University of Miami, which entered last Sunday's game ranked 14th in the nation, making it the highest-ranked opponent the Pride has ever defeated.

"It makes a big statement heading into next year," freshman catcher Matt Reistetter said. "The whole season, we were kind of underdogs against anybody we played. So now maybe this will put us on the map and teams will take us more seriously."

"It didn't really come as much of a surprise to us," freshman leftfielder Kenny Jackson said of the win. "We know we're talented and we were confident that we could play with a team like that."

The win over Miami wasn't the team's first confidence- builder. There was the program's first three-game sweep of George Mason in the middle of April. And a near-series win over James Madison -- a team currently in second place in the Colonial Athletic Association -- in the middle of March was denied only by a three-run homer in the eighth inning of a heartbreaking 13-12 loss in Game 3, one of the Pride's eight one-run losses this season.

But most importantly, there has been individual progress shown by a team composed predominantly of underclassmen, many from Long Island.

Levittown's Bryan Verbitsky, a two-time winner of the Diamond Award -- given to the best all-around high school player in Nassau -- has made 16 appearances in his freshman year, recording three saves and a team-best 3.45 ERA through this weekend's games against Virginia Commonwealth. Jackson, originally beaten out as starting leftfielder, eventually earned the job and has hit .329 with 18 RBIs. Reistetter, a freshman catcher by way of Hauppauge, is hitting .274 and has done an admirable job of working with the pitching staff.

Long Island also is well represented in Hofstra's middle-relief corps, with Sean Monaghan of East Meadow, Everett Keller of Port Washington, Gregg Lettini of Hempstead, Gregg Sarra of Ronkonkoma and Brett Schreiber of Westbury.

In addition to a strong recruiting class, Hofstra (13-31) will return Coram's Bobby Gazzola and Hicksville's T.J. Thomas, who transferred from San Diego State. The pitching staff will be bolstered by the availability of redshirts Nick Kozlowski of Huntington Station, John Schilt of Westbury and John Krause of Wantagh.

With developing young talent complementing Hofstra's established players such as juniors Danny Poma and Jared Hammer (hitting .404 and .347, respectively) and junior Joe Perez (team-high eight home runs), the team is confident that wins over teams like Miami won't come as such a surprise in the near future.

"After you beat a team like Miami, you come into your conference games thinking you can beat anybody," Verbitsky said. "We're a young team and we've had our bumps in the road. But I think it sends a big message to all of our opponents that we are building up and coming on strong."