D3Baseball.com Poll /
Collegiate Baseball Poll
TROY, N.Y. – The Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) baseball team is nationally-ranked in two national pre-season polls. The Engineers, who are led by 26th-year head coach
Karl Steffen, are listed 13th in the D3Baseball.com Top 25 and 16th in the Division III Collegiate Baseball Newspaper Pre-Season Poll.
Rensselaer is coming off a season in which it set a team record for wins, going 37-13 and finishing 17th in the country in the final ABCA/Collegiate Baseball poll. RPI won the Liberty League regular season title and advanced to the finals of the New York Regional of the NCAA Tournament for the second straight year.
Rensselaer returns 21 student-athletes from the 2009 campaign, including five starting fielders and each of the top five pitchers in terms of earned run average. As a team the Engineers hit .346 with 56 home runs and 44 runs batted in during the 50-game season. From the mound they held the opposition to a .276 batting average and 3.98 earned runs per contest.
Leading the pitching rotation is senior righthander
Andrew Mondo, a righthander from Clifton Park, N.Y., who set the school record for wins, going 11-3 with a 3.03 earned run average in 16 appearances. In 92.0 innings he allowed 95 hits and 55 runs (31 earned) with 93 strikeouts and 22 walks. The opposition hit .255 against him.
A graduate of Shenendehowa High School, Mondo won numerous awards, including Liberty League Pitcher of the Year, New York Region Pitcher of the Year, ECAC Pitcher of the Year and ABCA National All-America Second Team. He was also an ESPN the Magazine National Academic All-America Third Team selection.
Offensively, senior
Patrick Reardon is expectd to be a catalyst. A native of Troy, N.Y., Reardon played all 50 games with a .409 batting average on a school record 79 hits in 193 at bats. He had 22 doubles, a triple and 10 home runs for 133 total bases. The LaSalle Institute graduate scored a school record 61 runs with 54 RBI.
Reardon garnered Liberty League Player of the Year, New York Region Player of the Year, ECAC Player of the Year and National All-America Second Team by both the ABCA and D3Baseball.com. He and Mondo were both selected as 2010 Pre-Season All-Americans.
Rensselaer opens the 2010 campaign on March 6 against Theil College in Winter Haven, Fla. Following an 8-game spring break trip, the Engineers play their first game in the northeast on March 20 at Montclair State in New Jersey. Their first home game at Robison Field is scheduled for March 24 against Castleton State (4pm).