Boretti Hire Elevates Baseball Program

As members of the Columbia baseball team piled on one another in celebration of a 5-4 victory over Penn this past Saturday, they were quick to note that it was a reflection of how far the Columbia baseball program has come in its three years under head coach Brett Boretti. The win sealed the program’s first Gehrig Division title since 1993 and its second ever. This weekend, the Lions will travel to Dartmouth for the Ivy League Championship. If they come home victorious, it will be the program’s first Ivy championship since 1975.

“My first year was coach Boretti’s first year and he has certainly built the program,” first baseman Ron Williams said. “He has built it up more every year.”

When Boretti was hired, he inherited a team that had gone just 5-15 in Ivy League play the season before. His first season did not show many signs of improvement as the Lions were outscored 89-35 in their first 11 games, losing all of them.

Columbia also endured mid-season losing streaks of five and 10 games en route to a 13-32 overall record and a 6-14 league mark. While six underclassmen started at least 20 games and Williams, then a freshman, hit .326, the Light Blue ranked sixth in the league in both batting average and ERA.

Despite his team’s struggles, if Boretti’s current state of mind is any indication, he was not worried

“In our league there isn’t a huge difference between the top and bottom,” he said. “It’s a tight league.”

In his second season, the Lions showed signs of improvements, finishing at .500 in Ivy play. However, only two seniors started every day and this inexperience showed mid-season as the Light Blue dropped all four games at Brown and Yale after a 5-3 league start.

Statistically, the team also made modest strides. While it still finished sixth in batting average and ERA, it scored the third most runs in the Ivy League.

By year three, with a mix of holdovers form previous coach Paul Fernandes and three of Boretti’s recruiting classes, many expected great things from the Light Blue. Boretti, though confident, did not share in hyping his team.

“I don’t think I had any expectations,” he said. “We try to do things better, make guys better day in and day out.”

The Lions had dropped their first eight games and won just one pair of consecutive games before Ivy play began, but Boretti expected this given his difficult early season scheduling.

As league play began, the Light Blue swept defending champion Brown in a doubleheader and followed that with a split against Yale. In the first game against Brown, junior Joe Scarlata pitched a complete game while freshmen and sophomores drove four of the team’s six runs in. In the second game, freshmen Geoff Whitaker went 7 1/3 innings, giving up just two runs as seniors Mike Roberts and Henry Perkins knocked in six runs combined.

“I knew after playing for him for a little while he was definitely a great coach and he knew good players,” Williams said.

The next weekend the Lions swept Harvard before facing Dartmouth, which had already established itself as a frontrunner for the league crown. Columbia split the four-game series with Dartmouth as freshman Alex Ferrera drove in the first run of a five-run fifth inning in support of senior John Baumann’s complete game. Boretti has pointed to the mix of youth and experience all season in explaining his team’s success.

“The team’s attitude is displayed in what they are doing,” Boretti said. “It is a tight-knit group and when we win it’s a team effort.”

After that weekend, the Lions held a two-game league lead, and despite being tied with Princeton at one point this season for less than 24 hours, they never fell out of first place.

Columbia has set a school record for Ivy wins—15—and is headed to Dartmouth this weekend to compete for the Ivy title. When asked his feelings after clinching a spot in the playoff, Perkins had but one thing to say: “It’s obviously fantastic.”

Three years removed from that 5-15 season, Boretti has his team on the brink of making history but still does not take any of the kudos.

“It’s a credit to the work these guys have put in,” he said.