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Cheverus

PORTLAND, Me. - With the one-two pitching punch back from a Final 4 team in 2018, expectations are high for Cheverus this season.

“That’s always a good thing,” head coach Mac McKew said of the return of 1A pitcher Jack Mullen and 1B hurler Justin Ray from a team that finished 13-6 after advancing to the Class A Regional Final a year ago.

Mullen, a Bowden College commit, was 4-1 with a 1.39 ERA last season while fellow co-captain Ray, a 5-10 175-pound right-hander headed to Assumption College, went 4-2 with a 2.19 ERA. Ray also contributes as a middle infielder, averaging.328 with 13 RBIs last season.

The top hitter back is Chris Cimino, a junior third baseman who batted .423 with 14 runs batted in while not committing an error in the field. Senior Andrew DeGeorge, a 5-11 175-pound 1B/OF/LHP, is another returnee after hitting .286 with nine RBIs as a junior.

The biggest shoes to fill due to graduation are those of Griffin Watson, a .431 hitter who scored 25 runs and stole 17 bases. Watson is currently a member of the Fairfield program as a walk-on.

“Our biggest concern is generating runs,” McKew noted. “I think we’ll pitch well and our defense is pretty solid.”

Depth on the mound is expected to come from junior right-hander Nick Galeucia, sophomore lefty Nick Giancotti and sophomore righty Sam Clark.

“Those are young pitchers coming up that we’re going to need,” McKew said. “We use a three-man rotation each week.”

Youth expected to help the cause includes junior shortstop Luke Knowles and junior outfielder Nathan Rogers. Knowles, a 5-9 155-pounder, is rated 304th in New England in the 2020 class while Rogers, a 6-1 182-pounder, is ranked 505th.

Now in his 11th season as coach with a record of 120-61, McKew has Cheverus on the map when it comes to baseball.

“Since taking over the program we expect to compete,” explained McKew, who led the Stag to a state title in 2011 and has had Cheverus in the Regional Final four of the last 10 years. “We always expect to be in the hunt.”

A lot of it has to do with confidence.

“It’s about getting the kids to believe in themselves,” McKew said. “We’re a smaller private school with only 400 co-ed students but we’ve compiled competitive teams and that continues to build momentum. Once you get that established, you get talented student/athletes here.”

Winning in the biggest school classification in Maine is not easy, especially for a school the size of Cheverus.

“There’s a lot of parity in southern Maine,” pointed out McKew. “It’s an even balanced league with 17 teams in Class A on the western side. We could be anywhere from one to seven.”

The annual rivalry game with Boston College High is slated for April 6 to help kickstart the campaign.

“That’s always the best team we play,” McKew said.

As for what can help the Stag reach the Final Four again, or perhaps beyond, McKew points to a few unknowns.

“The kids have to step it up offensively,” McKew explained. “We need some unexpected contributions. We don’t know who we’re going to get them from, but somebody will step up and give us contributions.”