Kean baseball looking to swing for the fences as the new season is underway

February 15, 2020

By Eric Salas | Published by February 15, 2020

Kean baseball is back in full swing for the 2020 season and the team is looking to make a strong push for the College World Series and a chance at the Division III National Championship.

“Every year the goal doesn’t change regardless of what team we have,” said head coach Neil Ioviero. “Last year’s team got a game short of a Super Regional, where we really felt like we let it slip away so I think there’s a lot of unfinished business.”

Kean had a strong 2019 season, finishing 31-16 and garnering a total of 22 wins on their home field. The Cougars are currently ranked 11th in the country for Division III programs on NCAA.com

“In our older kids’ and coaching staff’s minds, the sky’s the limit for this group if they can concentrate, focus, be determined, and come humble every day,” Ioviero said.

With great success comes with plenty of expectations for this group of guys as they have a lot more experienced players returning to build back up what they achieved last year.

“Expectations for us aren’t so much wins, our expectations lead us to wins,” said junior Zachary Marzano. “We as a unit expect to play very good defense around the pitchers and we expect to keep the score down by doing so.”

“Junior Zachary Marzano” Photo courtesy of Matt Kipp

Marzano started and played in 46 games last season while racking up a .373 batting average in 177 at-bats. What stood out the most were his four home runs and 41 RBI which were the most home runs by anyone on the team.

“Personally, I’m working on my defense at both first base and the outfield as well as becoming a more dynamic hitter in terms of taking more walks and hitting my pitch,” Marzano said. “On the pitching side of things I am working on slider location on 0-2 counts versus when I need to throw it for a strike.”

Senior outfielder Derek Walker started 46 games in 2019 and finished the season with a .298 batting average. In 168 at-bats, he drove in 19 runs on 50 hits. Walker had the fifth-most hits on the team last season and is looking to bring those numbers even higher this year.

“I’ve been working on a more consistent approach at the plate to where I can do damage in any count and add more value to our lineup than I have in previous seasons,” Walker said.

Above anything else, the team’s goal is to improve each day, starting with one game at a time.

“The big thing with this group is consistency,” Walker said. “This year everyone pretty much understands how pivotal each game is to where we need to go later on and that we can’t afford to give games away. It has to be 110 percent every day with consistency in all facets of the game.”