After starting the season in College Station against the No. 1 ranked team in the country in Texas A&M, the Elon baseball team is ready to compete for a regular season championship. The team has gotten off to a 5-6 start to the season after bouncing back from the A&M series in a big way by beating Presbyterian 16-3, and head coach Mike Kennedy has been impressed with what he’s seen so far. Despite not picking up a win against Texas A&M, he was happy with the fight that the team displayed against the 2024 runner-up.
“I learned a lot about our toughness. We competed all weekend,” Kennedy said. “We kept fighting and we gave ourselves a chance to win on Friday night. I learned that we had some young guys on Saturday that needed some reps. They need some experience. And, throwing them in that type of environment is very difficult, but they grow from that, they learn from that.”
Kennedy said it was helpful for the team to react and adjust to the tough environment of A&M because it will get them ready for other high-caliber opponents on their schedule such as Wake Forest. Senior Alex Duffey said the environment helps take away the pressure later in the season.
“Playing in an environment like that is something a lot of us have never done before, so dealing with that against a very good team, and it’s the first weekend of the year, there was a lot of pressure and nerves, and we handled that well,” Duffey said. “I think there’s a lot of positives because coming back playing other teams here or at other places where the environment’s a little bit different, it takes a lot of the pressure away.”
The team is coming off a disappointing 21-32 season where it went 4-14 on the road. Kennedy believes poor pitching was at the center of their problems last season.
“We had guys pitching in places that they didn’t need to pitch, whether it be someone trying to close or someone trying to start,” Kennedy said. “We had a lot of inexperienced guys pitching in innings that they hadn’t gotten before, and just weren’t ready for that. So we kind of took one on the chin.”
However, Kennedy believes this gave experience to young players such as Hudson Narke and Carson Wehner and hopes that this experience will benefit them this year as the team begins to rely on them more. Another reason for the lack of success last year was due to the transfer portal hitting the team hard, particularly on the pitching staff. Between the portal and the MLB Draft, Elon lost pitchers that made up a combination of 271.2 innings pitched in 2023.
Kennedy was more prepared this season, though. A key addition in the transfer portal was infielder Jackson Alford, who came from Gordon State College. Alford has gotten involved immediately, getting a hit in his first career game with the Phoenix and then following it up with 3 hits and 1 RBI on Feb. 18. Kennedy said his athleticism and speed was a big reason why they were attracted to him. His base running skills will allow him to find success even when he doesn’t hit the ball hard, according to Kennedy. Kennedy was also impressed by Alford’s temperament.
“He’s very even keeled. He’s not emotional,” Kennedy said. “He has a great temperament for this game, and it’s almost like he doesn’t care, and I think to be a good player, you have to have a lot of that short memory in this game, and he brings a lot of that to the table.”
The team will rely heavily on a strong group of starting pitchers, led by junior Justin Mitrovich, who is expected to enter the MLB Draft after this season but the Phoenix are still searching for bullpen depth as their bullpen, or the group of relief pitchers, has had some bumps in the road so far this season. The team is still searching for a closer and more arms in the back end of the bullpen. They will likely be forced to have young guys throw early in the year so they can get the experience they need before conference play. Kennedy said that so far this season, he has seen a need to improve their ability to throw strikes and said they have walked too many players.
Elon’s strength lies in its offense and ability to score runs from the top of its lineup, led by seniors Charlie Granatell and Kenny Mallory Jr. Granatell, who recorded 23 multi-hit games last year along with finishing top 10 in the Coastal Athletic Association in doubles. Mallory boasted an impressive .354 batting average —10th in the CAA. The pair of them combined for 140 hits and 14 home runs last season.
Alongside veteran leaders like Granatell and Mallory, there will be a number of underclassmen looking to make an impact. Sophomore Vince Fattore will be looking to make a leap after entering the top 10 freshman home run record for Elon. He had 19 RBIs in his freshman campaign, the most on the team by freshman. Kennedy also mentioned freshmen Jake Hajdu, Tommy Mitchell, Hank Krift and Cade Mustard as players that could get involved this year if they can beat out competition posed by upperclassmen on the team.
Getting the offense going early and often will be a main priority, according to Duffey.
“One of our goals is to start off in conference very strong and ride that for the entire season,” Duffey said. “Just keep stepping up every week and continuing to put our best foot forward.”
Duffey, a veteran catcher who worked in the offseason on increasing the speed he gets the ball to second base, has high expectations for this year and believes the team can compete at a higher level in conference play this year because of a switch in mentality.
“It felt like last year we were just playing. We were always fighting off people and barely sneaking through,” Duffey said. “Our goal this year is to attack teams and go right at them, right at their starting pitcher. There’s just an energy to this team that is kind of like, ‘We’re going to come after you with everything we got.’ There’s a little more aggression in this team.”