Catawba Valley Community College (CVCC) opens its baseball season at home on Thursday at 3 p.m. with a doubleheader against Piedmont Internationals junior varsity. The Red Hawks, starting their fourth season under head coach Paul Rozzelle, are ranked No. 17 in the country in junior college baseball./CVCC PHOTO
HobbsDailyReport.com
HICKORY – Catawba Valley Community College (CVCC) opens its baseball season on Thursday as a nationally ranked team with high hopes and big expectations.
ROZELLE
The Red Hawks, 31-25 overall last season and 16-10 in conference games, start their fourth season under head coach Paul Rozzelle with a 3 p.m. doubleheader on Thursday against Piedmont International’s junior varsity.
CVCC — No. 17 in the National Junior College Athletic Association (NJCAA) rankings — will again play its home games at Henkel-Alley Field at the Legion Fairgrounds in Newton.
The season-opening games were scheduled for Saturday but moved up by the threat of rainy weather. The teams will also play a game on Friday at the Fairgrounds.
Rozelle believes the earlier start won’t have an impact on his team.
“Moving up is not a bad thing at all,” he said in a CVCC press release. “Our guys are ready to go. The only thing it does is maybe cut down bullpen time leading up to a Thursday start as opposed to a Saturday. They are on limited pitch count any way.
“They are excited. They are ready to go. We are ready to go. As we get into the season, every coach wants to know what they have.
“You can practice all you want to and intrasquad all you want to, but until you go out there and play against outside competition then you know what you’ve got.”
Overall
Rozelle said he is confident the Red Hawks will have good pitching and play good defense.
“Right now, we pretty much know we are going to get some good outings from guys on the mound, and we are going to play pretty solid defense,” Rozzelle said via the press release. “Now, we’ve got to figure out how to score some runs. It’s going to be interesting to see how we do that, but I think we are going to be fine.”
Despite having 16 sophomores on the roster, leadership is possibly CVCC’s greatest attribute.
“I think the sophomores are pretty good in terms of leadership coming back,” Rozelle said in the release. “The captains — Graham Mitchell, Julian Smith, Hunter Isaacs and Daniel Brinegar — have done a great job.
Other returners like Harry Hatcher, Jimmy Marcelli and Cory Watt may not be captains, but they definitely have a pretty good role with our team.
“They’ve done a really good job in terms of the culture here of what we want going forward.”
Rozzelle believes a talented freshman class will also mix in well.
“We think we’ve got some guys who can come in and do some really nice things, but you’ve got to see it,” Rozzelle said of his freshmen. “They are going to get their first bite of it here soon.”
Catchers
Brinegar returns to anchor the Red Hawks’ catching corps after playing behind Gold Glove winner and current Appalachian State baseball player Riley Smith last year.
“(Brinegar) didn’t make an error last year and competes his tail off,” Rozzelle said. “He’s a ball player. That’s what he is. He is kind of gritty and grimy. He leads that (catching) group.”
Freshmen Drew Latham and Willie Gordon and former South Caldwell High star Brett Macchia could also see playing time behind the plate.
“We have a bunch of other guys behind (Brinegar) who we like really, really well,” Rozzelle said.
Infielders
The infield is possibly one of the strongest assets for CVCC as it includes returners Graham Mitchell at third base, All-Region X defensive team second baseman Jimmy Marcelli and first baseman David Graves, who will also play outfield.
“A lot of times you don’t get to return so many guys coming back,” Rozzelle said. “If you look around that infield, you are going to have a lot of familiar faces, which is really nice because those guys know what to expect and know what to do.
“We are really excited about that. We kind of have high hopes for that infield unit all year.”
Freshmen Garrison Burress and R.J. Conner will also help play a role in the middle of CVCC’s infield.
Outfielders
CVCC’s outfield will feature a new look after losing its first National Player of the Year in Chandler Jenkins, who is now at East Carolina University, to graduation.
Cory Watt returns in center field, while freshmen Cody Payne (Clover, S.C.) and Rod Munoz (Apopka, Fla.) and Motlow State transfer D’Marcus Gillory will also factor in to the outfield equation.
“Our outfield is going to be very different,” Rozzelle said. “We’ve got a bunch of speed-type guys. We can cover some ground out there. We are going to have a chance to run baseballs down.
“We’ve got a chance to be pretty good defensively all the way around in terms of when balls go in air, we have a chance to catch it. That’s always going to help.”
Pitching
HARVEY
Captains Hunter Isaacs and Julian Smith — an N.C. State signee — lead a group of extremely talented, veteran pitchers for CVCC.
Third-year CVCC pitching coach Kris Harvey has been pleased with what he’s seen from his group.
“It’s been nice for this group to have some older guys,” Harvey said. “We have a couple of third-year sophomores. It’s nice to have that leadership on the staff.
“We have a lot of depth. There’s a lot of roles that can be filled and guys can kind of figure out where they are going to fit at.
“We should be very good at the top, very good at the back and we’ll figure out where guys are going to fit at in the middle.”
Schedule
The Red Hawks’ schedule features the addition of more mid-week doubleheaders — something Rozzelle is especially excited about.
“One thing it benefits for the most part is hitters and being able to get consistent at bats throughout the year,” Rozzelle said. “Ending on Sunday and not playing again until the next Saturday or Sunday, that’s tough. Now, they’re going to be able to play Saturday and Sunday and then turn around and get four to eight more at bats off live pitching in a game-type situation on a Tuesday or Wednesday. You can’t really beat that.”
Harvey believes Red Hawk pitchers should also benefit from the midweek games.
“It just makes it easier for us to be on a routine,” Harvey said. “Your bullpen guys don’t have to wait. If they have a bad Saturday or Sunday, we’ve got a shot to get them back out in the midweek and really set up for our conference tournament play.
“More guys are going to have a chance to start. When we get into conference tournament and regionals, we have five or six guys who have started. That will make it hopefully a little bit easier when we get there.”
ROSTER: http://gocvcc.com/sports/bsb/2017-18/roster
SCHEDULE: http://gocvcc.com/sports/bsb/2017-18/schedule
- Reported by CVCC Sports Information