The Queens College Knights men baseball team ended its season with an 18-23 record, barely missing out on the playoffs. The Knights season came to an end after dropping a pair of East Coast Conference (ECC) games to the University of Bridgeport Purple Knights, needing wins in both games to advance to the postseason.
Despite it being the Knights fourth straight season without a playoff berth, there were still bright spots in their season. Senior Joe Broderick finished the season with an all-conference nod from the ECC after being named to the All-ECC First Team as a starting pitcher. Broderick completed the season fifth in program history with 73 strikeouts in a season, which also ranked him second amongst all ECC players this year.
In four seasons with the Knights, Broderick wraps up his career with 197 strikeouts in 221.2 innings, 11 wins, and owns a 3.86 ERA in 40 appearances including 33 starts.
Broderick hands over the pitching reins to freshman Nick Morena who had a fantastic rookie season. Morena earned four weekly honors from the ECC, three of which were the ECC Rookie of the Week and one NCBWA East Region Pitcher of the Week.
“We expected this from him. He has a good amount of talent and we had high expectations for him and they will only get higher and higher each year,” head coach Chris Reardon shared when asked if he anticipated Morena having such a stellar season for a first-year player.
With improvement being one of the biggest goals for the team’s next season, Reardon believes that once they become more consistent on the field, then they’ll be a much better team.
“We play in a very competitive conference and we beat a lot of good teams but we just have to play like that more often, we need to be more consistent,” coach Reardon said. “But my biggest job is in recruiting. I’ve got to pick the right student athletes for Queens College — not only good students but also good baseball players.”
Finishing last in the conference in home runs for the season, the team’s hitting is another area for improvement next season for the Knights.
“Even though our pitching remained consistent, we need to have a better approach at the plate which will eventually get our batting averages up,” junior outfielder Thomas Parish said.
The hitting is an area that was also mentioned by Coach Reardon. He said that he will be looking for different methods over the summer to help the team boost its at-bat statistics.
“We can work on our philosophy and techniques and try to become more aggressive. It’s my job to make sure we have the right kind of team to be successful,” Coach Reardon stated.
Although it was another year without postseason play, with the improvement that the team has made over the course of the last three seasons, we should expect to see the Knights in the playoffs in the near future.
Coach Reardon expressed his optimism for the team’s future, adding, “I really feel that next year is going to be our year. I really believe that.”
