Head coaches want nothing more than their teams to come together at the right time, so first-year McGill Redmen baseball Head Coach Jason Starr must feel like the luckiest guy on the field. Fresh off qualifying for Nationals, the Redmen swept the Carleton Ravens to claim the Northern Conference title on Saturday afternoon. McGill will look to ride its momentum into the nation’s capital this weekend as it competes for its second championship in three seasons.
After beginning the year with a 2-5 record, the Redmen looked like a team in transition under the tutelage of a new head coach. Nevertheless, Coach Starr and his team remained positive in light of the slow start.
“Early on we were still trying to find our identity as a team. We weren’t playing bad baseball. We were still trying to gel [and] figure things out,” Starr said. “All of our losses at the beginning of the season were one or two run games. But the guys stayed positive knowing they could play better.”
The positive attitude and confidence paid off in the latter half of the season, as the Redmen reeled off a five-game winning streak after the rough opening to the year. Soon enough, those close losses were turning into close wins. To accomplish this turnaround, the team looked to its veteran leaders.
“[We] have a core group of veteran guys. Players like Adam Gordon, Casey [Auerbach], Josh Gordon, Chris Haddad, LJ [Aguinaga]. These are guys [who] were there in 2010 when we won a National Championship. They’re leaders on and off the field,” Starr said. “There is a lot of leadership in [our] room that helps [our] team through tough times.”
The Redmen finished third in the CIBA Northern Conference, and were matched up against the second-ranked Ottawa Gee-Gee’s in the best-of-three semifinal series. They swept the series and moved on to play Carleton in the finals. While there were a few standout performances, such as Adam Gordon’s offensive production and Elliot Ariganello’s solid starting pitching, the Redmen wins were complete team efforts—a theme at the heart of all their victories throughout the season.
“The great thing about this team is that every game, someone else steps up … a lot of guys do the little things right,” Starr said. “It really is a complete team effort that we have.”
This is Starr’s first season as head coach after serving as an assistant for the previous seven years. He had big shoes to fill, taking over for Ernie D’Alessandro, who manned the McGill clubhouse for 16 years. Starr was not so keen on changing any specific game strategy, but instead tried to instill a drive to succeed from the opening day of training camp.
“I wanted to try and bring intensity. When I play [and] when I coach, I’m a very intense person,” he said. “I wanted to make sure that the guys played smart baseball, but [were] intense. [And] that there is a will to win among our players.”
Intensity likely won’t be an issue at Nationals. Instead, Starr pointed out that executing and doing the little things—bunting, moving runners over, playing solid defence—might make the difference between an early exit and another championship.
“We feel that we need to execute. We know that playoff baseball and Nationals are going be all close games. So it’s going to be the little things,” Starr said. “Guys are going to get hot and hit, pitchers are going to pitch well, and it’s going to be different guys every game [stepping up]. We want to make [opponents] earn everything they get.”
If this Redmen team has proven anything this season, it’s that they won’t shy away from the added pressure of Nationals.
“We have 25 talented players on this team. If the coaching staff can just put them in a chance to win, then they’re going to get the job done more often than not.”
All bets are on them getting it done and adding to the trophy case.
