Back in late September, middle infielder Issac Fossas committed to Brandeis University to play baseball and start attending the institution in a few weeks. The Milton Academy alum told me that a number of things intrigued him about the Massachusetts school.

“I always knew it was a great academic school and coming from Milton Academy I was keeping that in mind through the recruiting process,” Fossas said. “The coaching staff also was a big factor for me. When I visited the campus for the first time and met the coaches I felt like it was a good match for me pretty quickly. Coach Carlson had just finished his first season at Brandeis and seemed very focused on bringing the program back to where it was when he played for Brandeis and I felt like I definitely wanted to be a part of that.”

Brandeis plays its collegiate sports in the University Athletic Association (UAA), which is a conference that has some of the top schools in the northeast and east coast, including Emory, Case Western, NYU and Washington University in St. Louis, among other top institutions.

“Another thing that intrigued me about Brandeis was the league that they play in which is the UAA,” Fossas mentioned. “The UAA is made up of schools all across the North East and the East Coast and this past year they started traveling on the weekends to the different schools for weekend series. Being able to have the opportunity to travel to play top teams in the country like Emory and Case Western was something that I thought I would love to do.”

Fossas will be joining a Brandeis program that saw its team only win six games this spring and two games against conference foes. The team as a whole hit .208 and scored just 69 runs over 27 games, so they’ll need as much help as they can get and the Dudley, MA native could be a huge help to a very young team that will only sport two seniors, both pitchers.

He just wants to do whatever he can to help the team improve.

“During this fall and spring, I hope to contribute as much as I can to the team in the role that I earn,” he added. “If I can help the team playing by on the field as starter or by sitting on the bench and helping the starters improve during practice I’d consider it a successful season.”

He also comes from a lineage of baseball players in his family. His brother and uncle have both played pro ball. His uncle played in the minors for nine seasons and his brother, who played college ball at Wake Forest University, is now in the Cincinnati Reds organization. His brother, Aaron, is currently pitching in Class-A Dayton.

“My family has helped me greatly with baseball and they have taught me almost everything I know about the sport,” he emphasized. “Throughout little league, middle school, and high school, my dad, my brother and my uncle were always helping me get better and fix things that I was struggling with. They have also set examples for me in how much work I need to put in to have a successful season and career at any level. They both went through struggles early in their careers with my uncle, who spent nine years in the minors and my brother who had to redshirt his freshman year and then barely played as a sophomore both set examples that hard work eventually pays off.”

Over his baseball career, Fossas has received valuable advice from both his brother and his uncle. His dad also helped him with getting him to baseball games and practices, along with his everlasting support of his career.

“A piece of advice my brother has always told me is that there are always people ahead of me and behind me and I have to work to be the best I can be,” he said. “Advice my uncle has given me is to never get ahead of myself. To take it one swing, one throw, and one pitch at a time. I should also always focus on what I’m doing right now to get better and to always focus on the small stuff just as much as the big stuff. Also, my dad has provided a tremendous foundation for me — sacrificing his time and knowledge and doing whatever he could to help me get better.”

Fossas has played for a well-regarded Milton Academy program over the past four years. He continuously gave a lot of high praise to coaches Matt Petherick and Jeff Natale, who played ball professionally, as he recalled that they always gave the time of day to help out their players and to help them get better on and off the field, making them respectable in every aspect of the game. He also mentioned his favorite memory from his time playing ball at Milton Academy was when they walked off against their rival, Nobles, to clinch their first ISL championship in 13 years his junior year.

Though they were unable to win back-to-back ISL titles, and that disappointed the team, Fossas said that it was still good to see the team finish with a quality record. He also didn’t forget to leave out those players that made the season still successful.

“This past season for Milton had lots of ups and downs but the goal at the beginning of the year was to win the championship again and since we didn’t, we were disappointed,” he said. “We had a lot of talent from returning guys that were seniors with me like Buddy Mrowka, Matt Tabor, Josh Katz, Jack Bliss, and Oliver Boyce. We also had a lot of new talent with Peter Sakelaris, Ryan Cervone, Vicker DiGravio, and Jimin Kang. Tabor was obviously great as he always has been for us but our offense struggled for a big part of the season which allowed a lot of wins we could have had, slip away.”

Speaking of Matt Tabor, the right-hander was drafted by the Arizona Diamondbacks with the 82nd-overall selection and was a teammate of Fossas’ at Milton Academy and at North East Baseball, the program that the two played travel ball with. Tabor is also someone that Fossas has been very good friends with since they played 15U baseball together.

“I always enjoyed playing baseball and competing with him because he always wanted to win as badly as I did,” Fossas said about the Diamondbacks’ draftee. “When I first met him he was a 5-foot-2 second baseman who could barely hit the ball out of the infield and when we left high school he was a 6-foot-2 pitcher who could throw up to 97 mph which I always thought was crazy. Throughout my time playing with him we both always loved to have fun at games and practices and whenever he found success on the field he always wanted to get better.”

When asked about his strengths and weaknesses heading into collegiate ball, Fossas believes he can bring a positive mentality to Brandeis’ team, but he feels that he has a whole lot to still work on to become a better ball player, including adjusting to better college pitching that he didn't see while playing for Milton Academy and against other schools in Massachusetts.

“I think a strength of mine that could help me make an impact on a collegiate level is my ability to mentally deal with all of the failures that baseball brings to everyone who plays and move past them to try to succeed,” he said. “I feel like some things I need to work on before I move up to the collegiate level are getting physically stronger to be able to compete with guys that have been on a collegiate level for multiple years, and getting my arm stronger to be able to make more plays from third base. I also feel that I need to work on my speed before taking the step up to the next level.   My junior year I hurt my hamstring and it took a while for me to be able to fully recover so I feel that continuing to get my speed back will help me as well.”

Tabor ended our conversation by mentioning that he has loved the game of baseball ever since he was three years old. He remembers watching his older brother play and that got him into playing the game. He also didn't forget to thank the coaches that helped him get to where he is today.

“I am very thankful for the opportunity to play baseball at the collegiate level and I am very thankful for Coach Petherick who was the biggest help in everything I did in baseball for the past four years and for helping me in the recruiting process with Brandeis,” he said. “I am also thankful for Scott Patterson and Matt Kruger who have helped me get better every summer and who also helped me in the recruiting process and helped me get to Milton Academy.”