Massachusetts baseball has a long-standing tradition of talented ballplayers that have come and gone through its program, setting marks that take nothing but talent and consistency to break.
Bill Knight belted a single-season school record 19 home runs and 72 runs batted in during the 1995 season, as well as contributing 15 doubles (good enough for 10th all-time in a season) on his way to helping the Minutemen win the Atlantic 10 Conference championship and advance to a birth in the NCAA tournament.
Stellar speedster Brad Gorrie holds the top two single-season school record spots for runs scored (63 in ‘97; 61 in ‘96) and stolen bases (43 in ‘97; 33 in ‘96), again helping the program to its second consecutive A-10 title and NCAA appearance in ‘96.
Ryan Jette’s name pops up all over single-season record books, including at the top of ranks when it comes to at-bats (212 in ‘96). The former UMass star and New England Collegiate Baseball League Most Valuable Player (‘95) is also tied for third in stolen bases with 32 in a single season all-time (‘95), and followed up his 67-hit season in ‘95 with 76 the following year, good enough for a tie for second-most all-time.
With some records in reach, the Minutemen might be currently witnessing another great hitter in the program’s history: senior third baseman Matt Gedman.
After Friday’s game, one of a doubleheader against Xavier, Gedman remained in the midst of a hitting streak that stood for 18 games, at the time, the longest active streak in the A-10, and the fourth-longest in the conference this season.
Hitting safely in 18 consecutive games is no easy task at the collegiate level, as other members of the Minutemen have had streaks.
This season alone, all as recent as from the start of this weekend’s series, the second longest active hitting streak by a UMass player was sophomore Rich Graef at six games. Sophomore Anthony Serino and freshman Dylan Begin each had seven-game spans of reaching base safely at some point this year. From Mar. 18 to Apr. 2, co-captain Kyle Multner had an eight-game hitting streak. Going backwards, Eric Fredette had a team-leading 16-game hitting streak last season, the second-longest by Minutemen in a decade.
Even going further back, the longest-hitting streak in the last 10 years was by Aaron Senez with 20 games in a row in 2001. The longest all-time is by former star Muchie Dagliere, who in 1998 recorded a hit in 31 consecutive games.
Unfortunately, Gedman’s quest for the hitting streak crown ended with an 0-for-4 performance in Friday’s second game of a doubleheader when UMass was defeated by Xavier, 9-2.
Even though the streak came to an end Friday, Gedman’s pursuit to be one of the greats in the program’s history is nowhere considered finished with 15 games left.
The senior’s .450 batting average not only has him topping the A-10 and placing fourth in the country, but also has Gedman ahead of the single-season record in the school’s history, currently held by Dagliere (.444 in ‘98). The Framingham, Mass. native is also on pace to break another Dagliere record; with 57 hits on the year after the first two games of this weekend’s series, Dagliere’s 81 hits in ‘98 is also at Gedman’s fingertips.
With 15 games left, the path is set for Gedman to place his name in the UMass record books as one of the best hitters in Minutemen history.
Scott Cournoyer can be reached at [email protected].
