Update from Head Baseball Coach Scott Heather -- October 2025

Greetings from Lewisburg!

The fall semester is off to a great start and the weather has been fantastic. We kicked off the fall with our annual Gene Depew Memorial golf tournament, and we had a tremendous turnout, selling out the event. It is very rewarding to see the tournament continue to grow, and this year’s event included our largest alumni turnout ever. So many good things happen when we bring alumni and the current team together. Thank you to all who contributed to the day by coming back, or supporting the event as a donor.

We are well into fall practice with many new faces, and I can say the team is coming together nicely. Our older players have welcomed the new players into the program, just as they had been welcomed a few years back, and that makes for an easy transition. They have been working extremely hard. We made a few adjustments to our weekly workout schedule this year, moving a few lifts to the mornings. Strength coach Darrin Shirk has been bringing the energy and intensity, and the players are responding well. I am seeing gains already. We also added more individual days in the fall to focus on individual development as we lead into the weekend. We are building pitch counts and stacking up at bats on the weekends. Early on it looks like this team is shaping up to be built on pitching and defense.

Our team is enjoying playing on the new turf, which was redone over summer. Under Coach Depew in 2010, we were one of the first programs to adopt the FieldTurf surface, and now more than half our games are played on that surface in the northeast.

Here is a video showing the players and what they think of the new turf.

We will wrap up the fall with scrimmages against IUP and Penn State. We will play IUP at home on October 11^,and at Penn State on October 17, giving us an opportunity to compete against someone other than ourselves. The fall generally consists of three scrimmages a week, so we get plenty of baseball against each other. The games against IUP and Penn State will be a nice way to wrap up fall ball coming together as a team on the field.

There are many team building opportunities throughout the fall in the weight room and elsewhere, but there is nothing like getting in the dugout together going against someone across the field. Penn State will certainly provide a barometer of our progress, as they have continued to improve the program in the NIL era. IUP also returns a veteran team with many players that contributed to a World Series run under coach Steve Kline. Unsurprisingly, they play with a chip on their shoulder when they come back to Steve’s hometown.

I recently returned from a fundraising trip to NYC, where I had a great opportunity to catch up with some alumni. Our program has incredible support, and it does not go unappreciated. I am so thankful for all that our alumni, parents and friends do to help us run the program in a first-class manner. I will be in touch again soon, and hopefully you appreciated this fall update.

Go Bison!

Scott Heather
Head Baseball Coach
sheather@bucknell.edu

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