Update from Head Baseball Coach Scott Heather -- December 2024

Happy Holidays from Bucknell Baseball!

I hope everyone is doing well and excited for the holiday season. Our players are wrapping up finals and have started to head home for the semester break. For the last month or so our seniors have been lining up their jobs for next year to get them secured before the baseball season begins. I know they have leaned on our alumni base to do so, and so many of you have been willing to lend assistance and support. Thank you for always being willing to take a call or connect a player with another alum. It is one of our program’s greatest strengths.

I am very proud of how our players go about their business. With finals going on, the NCAA does not allow you to have workouts, but our players are getting their individual skill work done in the cage or on the mound down in the fieldhouse daily. It’s a very self-motivated group. In the many conversations I have had with them, it seems like they are doing tremendous in the classroom as well. They are thriving on and off the field.

It’s been an interesting fall semester as we have had to work back from a few injuries and illnesses. It’s better to have that happen in the fall and we are projecting to be at full strength come January. I am anxiously awaiting 2025 to get here and I know the players are too. We open up at Virginia Tech in two months and it will be here before we know it.

Our pitching staff has continued to make strides this fall and into the off-season. We have a deep group of talented pitchers. It’s nice to have Tyler O’Neill return as a senior to anchor the staff. Sophomore Jake Schultz showed he will be a force to be reckoned with as well. I am excited to see how it turns out and see who emerges as we have several candidates for increased roles.

I think our hitters made great strides this off-season too. We were able to spend the last five weeks fine-tuning the mechanics of the swing and making sure they were in a good position to hit. The off-season is where we often see the most growth in that department. It is much harder to make a mechanical adjustment during the season when you are focused on having productive at-bats.

We return a solid nucleus of players who were key contributors last year. Billy Kender, Michael Trommer, Chris Morabito, and Tyler Dunn will give us four proven hitters in the middle of our lineup. We will have more team speed in the lineup, allowing us to be more aggressive with stolen bases, providing a different type of offense for us this season than what our opponents have seen the past few years. You may see us hit and run and bunt more too.

We won’t have as much home run power but the offense will still be built upon on-base percentage and extra-base hits. The key will be how we develop our pitch selection at the plate as the year goes on. It is something we emphasize and work on every day. It’s been nice to have Anthony Sherwin and Sean Keys around the program this fall who are in the midst of their professional baseball careers. Both have been working towards completing their Bucknell degrees, and I am proud that they will both be graduating soon. They are great examples for the current team to see how to swing at the right pitches and hit it with authority.

Thank you to the many alumni, friends, and family who jumped on the call last week concerning fundraising for a new indoor facility located near the baseball field. It’s an exciting time to be a part of Bucknell Baseball as we continue to try to grow. We had a great conversation during the call and we are hoping to capitalize on that momentum for the program. We have had many positive conversations since the call, which leaves me very optimistic about the project. It’s exciting to be moving forward with a project that I have long felt is needed and can help our players develop. If you were not able to attend, I should have a copy of the Zoom that you can watch shortly that I can share with you. Please feel free to reach out as I am happy to update you on the progress.

In other Depew Field news, the University has allocated the funding to replace the playing surface at Depew Field. We were one of the first schools to go to FieldTurf in 2010, and now it seems like almost everyone is playing on artificial turf in the Northeast. That project will be completed late this summer in time for fall practice next year.

Again, my very best to you and your families during the holiday season. I look forward to seeing you at Depew Field or at a game on the road this spring.

Go Bison!

Scott Heather
Head Baseball Coach
sheather@bucknell.edu

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