Season Finale of ‘Mac’s Musings’ Highlights Baseball Year in Review

BOCA RATON, Fla. – Another successful year is in the books for Florida Atlantic University baseball. Back-to-back 40-win seasons for the first time in 15 years, a fifth NCAA regional bid in the last seven years (and fourth in five), and multiple individual honors highlighted the 2019 campaign.

In addition to this feature, "Mac's Musings" Season Two is also in the books, and you can click on the link embedded above or click here – http://bit.ly/MacPodS2Ep14 – to listen to the accompanying thoughts of Head Coach John McCormack in the season finale.

Picked to finish third in the Conference USA Preseason Poll, the Owls defied those expectations by being the best team in the league for 10 weeks, going 22-8 to capture the 2019 league regular season crown. The 22 wins is the most since joining C-USA and most in any league since 2003.

Overall, FAU would go 41-21, with the 40th win coming in the C-USA semifinal round, at the same time giving Coach McCormack his 400th career victory. McCormack would be named C-USA Coach of the Year, while the Owls' bats led the league in most every offensive category, which bestowed hitting coach Greg Mamula honors as well, as Assistant Coach of the Year.

Individually, catcher Pedro Pages notched the program's third C-USA Defensive Player of the Year award in four years, was Second Team All-C-USA and First Team All-Central Region by the NCBWA. He would also be the team's top draft pick, in the sixth round by the St. Louis Cardinals, and has signed and reported to the team's camp in Jupiter.

Joining him with All-Region honors was Second Teamer and second baseman Francisco Urbaez, who batted .322 with 10 homers and 41 RBI. Another bat recognized in a truly balanced offense – eight batters hit .295 or better, five between .320 and .332 – was Andru Summerall. The redshirt sophomore leftfielder/first baseman was chosen as Second Team All-C-USA, in a breakthrough year that saw him bat 80 points higher than his freshman campaign, and finish as the team's top run producer with 55 RBI. Pages and rightfielder Bobby Morgensen, who had back-to-back two-homer games in Athens to wrap the year (and a team-high 11 on the year), were chosen to the All-Regional Team.

Two first-years were lauded by league voters as well, earning C-USA All-Freshman accolades: outfielder Mitchell Hartigan and shortstop/pitcher Jacob Josey. Hartigan batted .322, tying for second on the team, while Josey's dual role included shutdown defense at shortstop and solidifying, late in the year, the team's third rotation spot. Hartigan would also go on to earn national honors, as a Freshman All-American by Collegiate Baseball.

The team's leading hitter, and another junior draft pick, was centerfielder and leadoff hitter for every single game, Eric Rivera. He batted .332 in his final year as an Owl, with a team-high 87 hits (ranking him second among all C-USA hitters). He also paced the team with 59 runs, fifth in the league, and was selected by the Toronto Blue Jays in the 14th round after a sterling three-year career.

Another tremendous season was had on the hot corner by senior Joe Montes, who blew past nearly every offensive checkmark in his final year, batting .321 (up from .293), going from one to nine home runs, and from 40 to 53 RBI. He matched his hit total of 77 in five less games and 23 fewer at-bats, raised his OBP nearly 50 points, and increased his slugging 150 points, to an even .500.

On the pitching side, consistency was key. Blake Sanderson and Mike Ruff made every single weekend start, 16 apiece, throwing over 180 combined innings with 14 wins between them. Sanderson earned First Team All-C-USA recognition, tying for the league lead with eight wins and a team-best 4.10 ERA. Ruff added six wins, held opposing hitters to a staff-low average of .254, and notched a team-high 98 strikeouts, 10th on the program's all-time single-season list (and sixth in C-USA). Additionally, his 10.0 career K/9 ratio is sixth on the FAU pitching ledger.

Both too were rewarded by hearing their name called in the MLB draft. Ruff was an 11th round selection by the Colorado Rockies, while Sanderson will join Rivera in the Toronto organization after going in the 31st.

A third arm was taken in converted reliever Vince Coletti, by the Oakland Athletics in the 17th round. After being a member of the rotation in 2018 and leading the team in starts, he appeared in a C-USA-high 35 games in a variety of roles out of the bullpen this year, with that number fourth-highest all-time for FAU. He eventually settled in as a bridge to closer Zach Schneider, whose 16 saves made for the most in C-USA, fifth-highest in the nation, and second-highest in FAU program single-season history. He finished his career with 31 saves, tying him atop the program list in just two seasons. Schneider also became the first repeat All-American in FAU history as the NCBWA voted him to their Third Team. He was First Team All-C-USA as well.

Here are all of the individual leaders in 2019 broken down by category:

Average - Rivera, .332
Runs - Rivera, 59
Hits - Rivera, 87
Doubles - Summerall, 16
Triples – 3 tied with 2
Home Runs - Morgensen, 11
RBI - Summerall, 55
Walks - Pages, 43
Stolen Bases - Rivera, 11
Slugging - Morgensen, .535
On-Base - Rivera, .434
ERA - Sanderson, 4.10 (Starters); Schneider, 2.83 (Relievers)
Wins - Sanderson, 8
Games - Coletti, 35 (Total); Ruff/Sanderson, 16 (Starts)
Saves - Schneider, 16
Innings - Sanderson, 96.2
Strikeouts - Ruff, 98

All told, in addition to the three juniors taken by big league clubs – Pages, Ruff and Rivera – 10 players and three staff members were part of the Class of 2019 this season: Montes, Sanderson, Coletti, Schneider, Diamond Johnson, Gunnar Lambert, Richie Nizza, Jacob Pino, Jordan Poore and Nick Swan, along with Max Diaz, Carolyn Scherpe and Brian Thomas.

Due back for 2020 – McCormack's 12th year as head coach and 30th with the program – is a solid nucleus of offense, in seniors Wilfredo Alvarez, Morgensen and Urbaez (all over .300 at .320, .312 and .322, respectively), juniors Jared DeSantolo and Summerall, and sophomores Hartigan, Josey, B.J. Murray and Nicholas Toney. The pitching staff will be young, but eight potential returnees recorded 19 or more innings pitching this year: Josey, Dylan Carter, Hunter Cooley, Eric Keating, Jon Jon Kostantis, Dylan O'Connell, Ryan Sandberg and Michael Schuler.

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