CCAC Boyce baseball ready to defend conference title

The Community College of Allegheny County’s Boyce campus baseball team ended a long drought last year as it won its first Western Pennsylvania Collegiate Conference title since 1985.

St. Bernards also advanced to the Region XX tournament with a chance to go to nationals.

The team saw its season end at regionals, but the returning players used momentum from the 2018 season for another run this spring.

A group of freshman have bolstered the ranks, and Boyce hopes to make noise in the conference and beyond.

“If we’re all on our games, we can go far,” said Kris Dick, a Gateway graduate and one of those freshmen hoping to continue making an impact.

The team stood at 6-10 overall and 1-2 in conference play through a doubleheader sweep of Ohio’s Lorain County Community College on April 3.

Boyce, with 19 games game left before the playoffs, was to face Lorain County in another doubleheader Saturday, Kent State Tuscarawas in a doubleheader Sunday and Allegheny County South in a single conference game Tuesday. Those games were to be played past the deadline for this week’s edition.

The sweep of Lorain County by scores of 11-5 and 4-1 snapped a five-game losing streak.

“It was good for us to get those wins,” said Dick, who pitched the final five innings of Game 1 for the win as Boyce rallied from an early 4-1 deficit.

“We had a team meeting last weekend to talk about a few things. I think it came down to building chemistry. We came back and got the job done.”

The 11 runs in the first game against Lorain was a welcomed sight as the team had scored a total of 14 runs in its five-game skid.

“It was nice to come out here and bounce back from a couple of tough losses,” said Penn Hills product Anthony Tucci, a Boyce freshman outfielder and pitcher. “We put all of that behind us and played well.”

The team again has a Latin American flair as eight players are from Puerto Rico, three are from the Dominican Republic and one is from Nicaragua.

“It’s a different experience for me, but it’s been a blast,” Dick said. “All of these guys want to be here and play baseball.”

Coach Austin Long said the assembling of the team comes from his contacts with coaches and teammates from college, networking and word of mouth about the opportunities through the program.

“We talk up the college and the baseball program and let them know what we have to offer,” Long said. “They know they have a chance to come in and play right away. They all come in as individuals, and they quickly become part of a team and a family.”

Playing right away at a junior college such as Boyce gets the players noticed by bigger NCAA schools, Long said.

Ian Logue, a sophomore pitcher from Thomas Jefferson, has earned a scholarship to play at IUP next season.

Others from Boyce are on other college baseball teams now or will be attending schools such as Point Park, La Roche, Fairmont State (W.Va.), Chatham and Mt. Aloysius.

“You really have a chance to succeed on this team and work to get to the next level of college baseball,” Tucci said.

Long said Dick and Tucci are doing the right things to help themselves get better and get the attention of college coaches.

“They really didn’t have a ton of offers out of high school, and that’s OK,” Long said. “They came here looking for a chance to play. They have an opportunity to work on their craft and get bigger, faster and stronger, and schools will take notice.”