After a late-season tear led them all the way to the American Athletic Conference Championship Game, UCF Baseball fell 8-7 to rival South Florida in Clearwater on Sunday, denying them a chance to hoist a trophy and clinch the automatic bid to a NCAA Regional.
With a 31-30 overall record and No. 85 RPI, the Knights weren't in the mix for an-large spot. The attention now turns to the summer, which should be mostly back to normal with in-person recruiting allowed again and a longer MLB Draft (this year there will be 20 rounds, instead of just five rounds in 2020). The new wrinkle though will be the NCAA Transfer Portal.
With a wrap on the season, UCF head coach Greg Lovelady reflects on the game and the season and also looks ahead to the future, including what impact the MLB Draft may have on his team later this summer.
Lovelady spoke for close to 30 minutes following Sunday's finale against South Florida. In regards to the game, he felt the Bulls got the "big hits" and UCF just didn't have enough of them. He regrets the fact they couldn't score more runs in the sixth inning as the table was set to potentially tie with runners on second and third and no outs - but just one of those runners scored.
He mentioned how it was probably the final games for right fielder Jordan Rathbone, center fielder Gephry Pena and catcher Josh Crouch.
"The (team) played their tails off and never quit," Lovelady said. "They could've rolled over and died in April. More bad things kept happening and even this week. We just kept showing up. Jordan Rathbone dislocates a pinky in April and breaks his thumb in May and never misses a game, playing through that stuff. We did it all year. We kept showing up to practice and putting work in. That's how you play your best baseball at the end of the year and we did that. Would have liked to finish it off with a championship, but it just wasn't in the cards."
The adversity that happened "this week" was a reference to relief pitcher Zack Hunsicker, who was injured during his brief appearance in last Tuesday's AAC tournament opener against Cincinnati.
In regards to the future, Lovelady feels the "plan is coming along." He says with high school players committing as freshmen and sophomores, younger players on this team like Pablo Ruiz, Hunter Patteson, Alex Freeland and John Montes represented their first commitments as a staff. As a late summer hire by UCF in 2016, Lovelady's first full recruiting summer was 2017.
"If you want to be a great team that's consistent every year, you've got to have the guys be in your system for several years and back them up with younger guys to move the train along," Lovelady said. "As guys leave, there's guys behind them. You're starting to see that more."
Lovelady said he really likes the recruiting class coming in next year. He didn't go into detail on specific names, but the center piece is Tampa's Cole Russo (who could also be drafted). Click here for the Perfect Game list of commitments.
"We're starting to build the depth and the talent we need in order for us to be the type of program we want to be. We've shown glimpses of that. We've just to get over the hump."
Lovelady added he would have loved to see what this team could do at "full strength," alluding to the season-long injury situation.
In talking about freshman relief pitcher Zack Bennett, who pitched three shutout innings against South Florida, Lovelady said he was excited about the pitching depth between him, Ben Vespi and Nick Vieira - all freshman. He then said "we'll see" if closer David Litchfield opts to return for what would be a redshirt senior season in 2022.
"The future is bright. I'm proud of those young guys for playing well this week."
This should be closer to a "normal" summer in terns of recruiting and camps after everything was shut down a year ago.
"Excited to get back on the road," Lovelady said. "We have a dead period for the NCAA Regional week, but college baseball can go out on the 8th. We'll tie up loose ends, get the kids on their way to wherever they're going, help some guys prepare for the draft, spend a couple days with family and then we'll go out on the road. It's been a weird 15 months of watching live stream games. There's some kids committed to us that we've never even met or seen in person. It'll be good to get on the road and keep stacking these recruiting classes on top of each other.
"It'll be an interesting summer with the transfer portal and seeing where that goes. It'll be an interesting week. Now that most teams are finishing up, there's already 1,300 or 1,400 kids in the portal. We'll be scrambling like everybody else figuring out who can help us to finish our recruiting class. It'll be fun. Get back on the road and find some future Knights that want to continue to build on what we did this year."
In regards to the MLB Draft, Lovelady said catcher Josh Crouch has solid pro prospects.
"You talk about the growth from a high school third baseman to going to junior college and becoming a catcher, then he lost the development last year. There's nobody that's made a bigger jump than he has from every angle, defense, leadership, commanding the position and offensively. He hit over .350 in conference. He hit 75 percent of his home runs after the second half of the year. The last three weeks he's been on fire and showing what kind of player he's become. I assume he'll be drafted pretty well."
Center fielder Gephry Pena should also hear his name called.
"Just his athleticism, his defensive ability. He could play defense in the big leagues right now. He's got to get stronger and become a better hitter, cut down on the strikeouts. But guys like that in terms of the athleticism and makeup is through the charts. They don't grow on trees. I assume he'll get a shot."
Lovelady hopes senior outfielder Jordan Rathbone gets drafted.
"What he's done this year in this league and the numbers he has, I hope he gets an opportunity."
A pair of starting pitchers, junior Jack Sinclair and second-year freshman Hunter Patteson, could also hear their names called.
"I think Jack being older with his age, I think somebody will take him because of his size and stuff," Lovelady said. "Hunter, being a draft-eligible sophomore, I think if he comes back and does what he's done the last month of the season, does that in the full course of a year, has a chance to be a really high draft pick (in 2022). I think he understands that. He'll have to make that decision wtih his family. That's somebody we need to keep our eye on and watch. We'll see what happens."
UCF's No. 1 starter Colton Gordon missed the second half of the season due to an elbow injury. He had been high on draft lists and will probably still get drafted.
"I think Colton, even though he had Tommy John surgery, I think somebody will give him a chance," Lovelady said. "He had worked into the top six rounds or so (before the injury). The way the draft works, they're going to look for discount guys and he's obviously going to have to take a discount. I know he wants to sign and continue his career at the pro level and rehab with a team. I assume somebody will take him in the top 10 rounds and sign for less than slot.
"We could have a lot of guys picked up. Good for our program and good for those kids chasing their dreams. That's what every kid wants for the most part, getting to the next level. It's awesome we're developing guys to get those opportunities."
Immediate eligibility granted to players in the NCAA Transfer Portal has caused a recruiting firestorm in football and basketball and Lovelady believes baseball will see a similar impact.
"I think it's going to be a circus," Lovelady said. "I think that was not a great idea. I'm preaching to the choir here, but my idea is we should have put teams into pods with a rolling RPI and (only allowed) players to transfer down (to a lower-rated RPI team). It's not fair for a kid to be the backup to Josh Crouch and you're the same age, you're never playing. There should be ways for kids to find better situations, but you don't want to become minor leagues for anybody. This is what it's going to end up being. Kids are unhappy or they feel like they can go to bigger or better. We feel like schools at our level are going to be a feeder program for the Power Fives and teams below us, Division II and smaller D1s, will be a feeder for teams in our league. It's going to be mass chaos, at least this first year.
"I think after the first year kids will realize there's only so many spots and there's so many players in the transfer portal, when the music stops there's going to kids without spots. That might halt some things for next year, but I think the next three weeks will be mad chaos in the college baseball world. All the coaches have been fearful of this, though we've known it was coming for the last year and a half. We used to have this. Summer leagues were being recruited. Head coaches said they were watching their players, but they were seeing who they could poach. We called it the wild, wild west and we were thankful when it stopped, but we're back to it. Hopefully there's no fist fights on the recruiting trail."
