Update from Head Baseball Coach Scott Heather -- December 2025

Dear Bucknell Baseball Alumni, Parents and Friends,

The fall semester has flown by, and I am excited by all that we accomplished during a very productive off-season from a very focused group. First and foremost, we are looking to be healthy when spring time rolls around. Last year we battled injures, both in the fall and in the spring, more than we have in the past and that certainly impacted our 2025 season. We made it through this fall healthy and are tracking to have a team at full strength in terms of personnel this spring.

They also worked extremely hard to get stronger throughout the fall. We adjusted our weekly schedule and that allowed us to lift in the new Pascucci Team Center under new strength coach Darrin Shirk. Darrin has been on staff at Bucknell the last few years, but this was his first year working with baseball. He was a baseball player himself in college which I think is a plus. He brings great energy and enthusiasm to each workout and we saw each player make considerable gains physically.

After wrapping up fall ball, we went into our off-season skill development phase which we just finished up. We spent the time trying to address both team and individual needs. We evaluated and addressed any needs mechanically with each individual player. We really spend time trying to improve our position to hit, and our team focus was to try to increase our contact rate and put the ball into play more. That was an area we saw in the fall and even dating back to last year that we need to improve on. We wanted to be more aggressive this fall, and we feel we accomplished that. As always, we want to make good swing decisions, and while we were a team that did not chase last year, we often let too many good pitches go by. We were able to improve on that this fall.

Sophomore Lleyton Coupe had a tremendous fall and emerged as a threat in the middle of the lineup this year. Junior centerfielder Billy Fluharty proved he could be a catalyst at the top of the lineup. Our outfield depth should be a strength, as we return juniors Chris Morabito and Mike Chiaravallo, and sophomore John Calabrese. We added a pair of transfers in the infield, juniors Ty Lagoni and Zach Selfon, and both showed they could contribute. Senior Mike Trommer is back fully healthy as well, and hit the ball hard all fall. We should have a deep lineup and also be able to put a solid defensive group out there in the field.

On the mound, we individualize each pitchers throwing program in an effort to put forth the best plan for each player to be ready for the spring. Several pitchers continued to face hitters as we had areas we wanted to address with each pitcher. I am excited about the overall depth on the mound, and it will be needed. Our seniors from last year will be tough to replace as they logged over 170 innings. We return three pitchers that missed considerable time last year in junior Jake Schultz, sophomore Tyler Hawkins and senior Mikey Myro. All three are in consideration for starting roles. We have three others that missed parts of the season last year that are fully healthy heading into the spring, including senior Hadley Maxwell, junior Dante Pavone, and sophomore Everett Garber. Our freshman pitchers showed they are ready to compete this spring by throwing very well during the fall. Junior Jonathan Adelmann returns as the workhouse of this staff, and he had an elite fall as he has continued to improve physically as a pitcher.

I also wanted to release our schedule for this season. It will be great to head south to open up the year at Charleston Southern and then play at Radford in week two. One of the highlights of the schedule is a midweek game at North Carolina on March 10 during our spring break. We will also have 21 home games this year which is the most we have scheduled in some time. It will be great to be on the new turf at Depew Field at Marren Park that many times.

You will also notice an adjustment to the league schedule this year. We were able to eliminate the split doubleheader weekends and midweek conference game. We will also have four weekends where we will play Friday, Saturday and Sunday. The players are extremely excited about that. I know many of you have experienced the four games over two days as part of your Patriot League experience. This year, we do not have any weekends that are scheduled like that. I think it’s a great thing for our players and we are excited to see how it plays out.

I also wanted to make a few other announcements, beginning with one of the most important 24-hour periods for our program – One Herd One Day. This year’s 24-hour giving challenge is scheduled for March 25-26 and I hope you will place it on your calendar now. As you know, that is a huge day for the program and we have traditionally been among the top programs in the department because of you and all of the support you provide. We will also be honoring the championship teams from 1996 and 2001 on April 25th before the game when we play Navy. It will be the 30th and 25th anniversary of those championship seasons for those teams. More details to come on that, but again, please mark your calendars and begin to make plans to join us. And finally, we are planning on bringing the team to NYC for a networking event with our alums on January 15. Please put all those dates on your calendar!

As always, thank you for all you do for the program and I hope you have a great holiday season.

Go Bison!

Scott Heather
Head Baseball Coach
sheather@bucknell.edu

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Update from Head Baseball Coach Scott Heather -- December 2025