WATCH | EYEBRONCO — Head Coach Dan O'Brien at Bay Area Baseball Media Day
Bronco Baseball 2015 Quick Facts
SANTA CLARA, Calif. — Santa Clara baseball opens the 2015 season Fri., Feb. 13 at defending national champion and preseason No. 1 Vanderbilt. The teams that each boast more than 100 years of baseball history meet on the diamond for the first time to begin this year's campaign.
QUICK PITCHES
Games 1-3 vs. No. 1 Vanderbilt
Dates: Fri., Feb. 13 – 2 p.m. PST
Sat., Feb. 14 — 12 p.m. PST
Sun., Feb. 15 — 10 a.m. PST
Venue: Hawkins Field — Nashville, Tenn.
TV: SEC Network+
Internet Radio: portal.stretchinternet.com/santaclara (David Gentile)
Live Stats: vanderbilt.statbroadcast.com
Series Record: Have not met
PROBABLE PITCHERS (2014 STATS)
Fri., Feb. 13, 2 p.m.
SCU: RHP Jacob Steffens (2-5, 3.90 ERA) vs. VAN: RHP Carson Fulmer (7-1, 1.98 ERA)
Sat., Feb. 14, 12 p.m.
SCU: RHP Steven Wilson (1-3, 4.37 ERA) vs. VAN: LHP John Kilichowski (0-0, 1.57 ERA)
Sun., Feb. 15, 10 a.m.
SCU: RHP Peter Hendron (6-4, 4.34 ERA) vs. VAN: RHP Tyler Ferguson (8-4, 2.69 ERA)
SANTA CLARA
Bronco Baseball finished the 2014 season with a 26-30 overall record, including a 16-11 West Coast Conference mark good for a tie for fourth and an appearance in the WCC Baseball Championship. Head Coach Dan O'Brien's Broncos won seven WCC series overall, including five straight to close out the regular season, beginning with a three-game sweep of the San Diego Toreros at Fowler Park. The team that featured six all-WCC honorees won the most conference games for the program since 2004.
VANDERBILT
The Commodores finished the 2014 season with a 40-16 overall record, including a 17-13 SEC mark. They posted three winning streaks spanning more than six games, including a season-long eight games twice.
As hosts of the Nashville Regional, Vanderbilt earned a bid to the Super Regional with a victory over Xavier and a pair of wins over Oregon. The Commodores advanced to the College World series by edging Stanford in three games.
In Omaha, Vanderbilt defeated Louisville and UC Irvine before falling to Texas on June 20, setting up a win-or-go-home game the following day with the Longhorns. The Commodores walked off in 10-innings to take down the six-time national champions and advance to the championship series against Virginia. Vanderbilt won the first game 9-8 and lost 7-2 to set up another winner-take-all matchup, which the Commodores won 3-2 for their first national championship in program history.
Juniors Walker Buehler, Carson Fulmer and Dansby Swanson have been named to the 50-player Golden Spikes Award watch list — given annually to the nation's top player. David Price won the award with Vanderbilt in 2007. Each of the three has also been tabbed as a preseason All-American.
Head Coach Tim Corbin is in his 13th season with Vanderbilt. He enters the weekend ranked second in program history with 516 wins and has an overall record of 516-250 with the Commodores. Vanderbilt's 2014 College World Series title was the second in school history and first for a men's sports program.
HEAD COACH DAN O'BRIEN
Dan O'Brien, the 36th head coach in school history with a program that dates back to 1883, enters his fourth season on the Mission campus in 2014-15.
The team started the 2013 season with back-to-back wins over Seattle and wrapped up the year with a victory at LMU. The Broncos took down Stanford 3-0 on May 14. In O'Brien's first season in 2012, the Broncos started the year 5-0 with wins over Texas State, Wichita State, Louisiana-Lafayette and Cal Poly. Santa Clara would go on to win 26 games, the most since 2008.
Over eight seasons with his alma mater UCSD, O'Brien's Tritons qualified for five NCAA Division II West Regional showings, two NCAA National Championship Finals appearances and set a school record for wins four times. His accolades include:
2011 Daktronics West Region Coach of the Year
2011 NCBWA West Region Co-Coach of the Year
2011 CCAA Coach of the Year
2010 NCBWA National Coach of the Year
2010 ABCA/Rawlings West Region Coach of the Year
2010 NCBWA West Region Coach of the Year
2010 CCAA Coach of the Year
2010 FieldTurf Coach of the Year
2009 NCBWA National Coach of the Year
2009 ABCA/Rawlings West Region Coach of the Year
2009 CCAA Coach of the Year
PRESEASON POLLS/ALL-CONFERENCE
The West Coast Conference announced the 2015 Preseason Poll and All-WCC teams Wednesday, and Bronco baseball junior closer Reece Karalus as well as junior shortstop Jose Vizcaino Jr. have been selected to the preseason all-conference team.
Vizcaino Jr. was one of two Broncos to appear in all 56 games of the season and his 54 starts were the most for Santa Clara in 2014. He played primarily at shortstop and led the team in batting average (.323), hits (65), triples (3, t-Greg Harisis), RBIs (28) and stolen bases (11). The La Jolla, Calif. native posted the team's longest hitting streak at 12 games and tied for the team lead with eight multi-RBI games.
Karalus led the team with a 2.25 ERA and 11 saves — the second-most in Bronco baseball single season history — in 2014. Primarily serving as the team's closer, he posted a 6-2 record, struck out 46 batters in 48.0 innings and held opponents to a team-low .206 batting average.
Santa Clara is picked to finish seventh in the 10-team WCC, receiving 38 points. LMU was picked to win the conference with 77 points and six first-place votes. Pepperdine (72 points, three first-place votes) and San Diego (63 points, one first-place vote) round out the WCC's top three. The preseason poll and all-conference teams are voted on solely by the league's 10 head coaches.
BRONCO ROSTER BREAKDOWN
Santa Clara welcomes a large group of newcomers once again in the 2015 season. After bringing in 12 freshmen a season ago, the Broncos added 12 freshmen newcomers alongside two junior college transfers in TC Florentine and Ryan Budnick. The rest of the roster features 13 freshmen (including Mitchell White coming off a redshirt season) 10 sophomores, nine juniors and only three seniors — TJ Braff, Evan Brisentine and CJ Jacobe.
GOOD TO HAVE YOU BACK
The Broncos return three pitchers that each made at least nine starts last season in Jacob Steffens, Steven Wilson and Peter Hendron. Santa Clara's current staff accounted for 40 of last season's 56 starts — then-senior and Friday night pitcher DJ Zapata made the other 16.
Steffens split time as a starter and a relief pitcher in 2014, beginning the season in the four-man starting rotation and returning to the weekend rotation in late April. He went 2-5 with a 3.90 ERA between 16 appearances and nine starts on the season. The Phoenix, Ariz. native posted better than a 3:1 strikeout-to-walk ratio with 43 strikeouts and 13 walks in 64.2 innings. The Broncos won seven straight games when Steffens took the mound at the end of last year's regular season.
Wilson made 11 appearances and 10 starts, serving as Santa Clara's Sunday starter for most of the 2014 season. He went 1-3 with a 4.37 ERA and 29 strikeouts in 55.2 innings. Opponents hit .272 against the Littleton, Colo. native during his freshman season.
Hendron pitched in the starting rotation all of last season for the Broncos, serving at the team's Saturday starter. He tied for the team lead with six wins as he posted a 6-4 record with a 4.34 ERA and 46 strikeouts in 83.0 innings over 14 starts. He pitched at least 7.0 innings in four consecutive games April 5-26 and allowed just four earned runs over the span.
Santa Clara also returns its four most-used relievers in 2014 First Team All-WCC Selection Reece Karalus (6-2, 2.25 ERA, 34 appearances, 11 SV), sophomore Jason Seever (3-2, 3.12 ERA, 29 appearances), junior Nick Medeiros and sophomore Kevin George.
IN THE FIELD
Jose Vizcaino Jr. joins sophomore catcher Stevie Berman (.322) and senior left fielder T.J. Braff (.309) as returning starters in the field, all three of whom hit better than .300 a season ago. Berman finished fourth in the WCC with a .443 on-base percentage and was named to the conference's all-freshman team. Braff took over first base in April after an injury to senior Mac Hess, and hit safely in 16 of 20 starts while recording 20 RBIs during that span alongside a spotless 1.000 fielding percentage at first base.
In addition to a talented freshman class, the Broncos welcome junior center fielder TC Florentine into the mix. The former Edmonds Community College Triton took home 2014 NWAACC Player of the Year and Gold Glove honors last season for head coach Scott Kelly's team.
FRESHMAN CLASS RANKED 64TH BY PERFECT GAME USA
Perfect Game USA revealed its incoming class of 2014-15 College Recruit Rankings in Nov. 2014, and ranked Santa Clara's class 64th of 296 NCAA Division I teams.
The group of 12 Broncos is the highest-rated SCU class since Perfect Game began ranking recruiting classes in 2011. It is also the third recruiting class under current head coach Dan O'Brien.
"From the beginning, our mission in recruiting was to get the right players, not the best players," associate head coach/recruiting coordinator Gabe Ribas said. "That takes seeing a prospect beyond his playing ability and talking with parents, coaches, teachers, peers and guidance counselors to find out what we will get on a day-to-day basis. The biggest mistakes I have made in recruiting are based on solely judging a player on ability."
BRONCO SCHEDULE BREAKDOWN
Santa Clara's non-conference schedule is packed with top opposition in 2014 College World Series Champion Vanderbilt on the road opening weekend, CWS participant TCU on the road April 17-19, super regional participant Stanford (home April 14, away May 5) and regional finalist Cal Poly (away March 3, home April 21). In its last series before West Coast Conference play, Santa Clara hits the road to face Big XII powerhouse Kansas State, who made it to a super regional with a school record 45-win season in 2013.
The Broncos are the only team in the country to play a weekend series against the top two teams in the Collegiate Baseball preseason rankings — No. 1 Vanderbilt and No. 2 TCU.
SEE YOU SOON
The season opening series features a few groups of summer collegiate teammates for the Broncos and Commodores who will take to the diamond as foes. Santa Clara's Jose Vizcaino Jr. teamed up with Vanderbilt's John Kilichowski — Saturday's probable starter — and Tyler Green on the 2014 NECBL Champion Newport Gulls. Bronco catcher Stevie Berman played alongside Vanderbilt's Ryan Johnson and Drake Parker for the NECBL runner-up Sanford Mainers.
SEE YOU LATER
Santa Clara hosts 27 games at Stephen Schott Stadium this season, only five of which are played between the 1st and 13th of any given month. 17 of the team's 27 road games are played between the 1st and 13th of any given month.
