The Gold Standard

Even as his team is in the middle of a long, grueling road trip, Columbia Baseball Head Coach Brett Boretti is still setting the best example of how to COMMUNICATE with the fans and keep up support.

Remember, this is a coach working in the same department as Pete Mangurian, who has yet to speak directly to the fans in months and just swept an assistant coaching hiring debacle under the rug.

Here's Boretti's latest notice sent out today:

I wanted to give you a quick update on the Columbia Baseball spring trip in Texas. We won one of the four games at UT-San Antonio (UTSA). The games were all tight and I feel like all facets of our game are getting better. The pitching on the weekend was solid throughout. Dave Speer, Joe Donino and Kevin Roy all gave us quality starts. The bats are coming around as well. We outhit UTSA on the weekend (46 to 38)-which is saying something. They are a very good offensive team who take their hacks and they have a solid pitching staff. We had a couple of 1 run losses which hurt, but we have to learn from them and get better in those situations and make the most of our opportunities offensively. We left 40 guys on base over the weekend. We are a hit away from some big innings. When you look at the process- we are doing good things offensively- the result is not quite there yet- but it will be. In game three we were down 8-1 after 4 innings and came back and had opportunities to tie it up or take the lead before losing 9-8. The effort is consistent and the energy is good. These are all things we can control and the guys are doing a good job. One last thing, offensively is it has been a collective effort- not just one or two guys. There are different guys contributing different days which is great. We want it that way. The at bats are getting more consistent and we are facing some good pitchers. Last night at Texas A&M, we played one of our best games. We got great starting pitching. Sophomore RHP George Thanopoulos pitched great. Our defense was outstanding- led by Aaron Silbar who had several nice plays at shortstop. Our 2-out hitting was the best it has been all year. Everything went as well as we could have envisioned for 23 outs. We need to finish better- it doesn’t matter if its Texas A&M or Dartmouth College- the game is the same. It takes 27 outs (sometimes more) to complete a victory. We played well and we lost- that’s better than playing poorly and losing. We take away the positives (which there were plenty) and move on. The guys are competing at a high level and their focus has been very good. Tonight it’s UT-Arlington- 6pm CST. We are staying right down the road from the Texas Rangers Ballpark and AT&T Stadium (Cowboys). Tonight Freshman RHP Ty Wiest will make his first collegiate start. After tonight’s game we travel tomorrow to Austin for an evening workout before locking up with the Longhorns on Friday night for game #1 of the series. TEXAS TRIP NOTES UTSA head coach Jason Marshall played at Texas A&M. He is an outstanding coach who runs a great program. Their players had a ton of energy and have fun at the yard. We picked up a few things from watching them play and how they went about their business. That’s the great thing about taking these trips to different parts of the country- you learn different ways of doing things- and try to incorporate some of those into your own program that you feel can help you succeed. Texas A&M’s facility- Blue Bell Ballpark- is the nicest college stadium I have ever been in. We worked out there on Monday evening and I’m not ashamed to say I felt like a kid in a candy store. I had to be touching 78mph in batting practice! College baseball down here is a BIG deal- and the atmosphere at the game last night was awesome. Another reason why these trips are so important to the overall experience for our guys. Texas A&M’s head coach Rob Childress, who has taken his program to the NCAA’s during each of his six years at the school and made a trip to Omaha in 2011 for the CWS, had some real good things to say about our guys after the game. Another class act and tremendous baseball coach that we enjoyed competing against. Columbia Baseball Alumni- Leslie “David” Hillis and Ron Szumilas came to our games at UTSA over the weekend. It’s always great to talk with our alumni who are living in some of the areas we travel to. Thanks guys for coming out and supporting the team. Tonight there’s an alumni function at UT-Arlington’s ballpark. Columbia Baseball alumn Anthony Appollaro will be at tonight’s game. That’s all for now. Thanks for reading and for more in depth reports on the games- check out our website- where Brock Malone put up some pictures of last night’s game. Thanks Brett