Southeastern baseball opens fall practice Monday

The Southeastern Louisiana baseball program opened its six-week fall practice period Monday with an afternoon practice session at Pat Kenelly Diamond at Alumni Field.
Coach Matt Riser’s ball cub returns 12 lettermen and five redshirts off the 2019 squad. Joining the returning players in fall camp are 25 newcomers, including 14 freshmen. The influx of newcomers was brought about by a senior-laden club this past spring.
“The core of our recruiting classes are usually based off high school guys,” Riser said in a news release. “We tend to be more consistent and sustainable as a program when we have a good high school class. In our situation, with such a large senior class last year, we also needed to get some transfers that can make immediate impacts. Our staff did a great job of addressing both.”
Returning for the Lions are pitchers, Hunter Arnold, Corbin Bozosi, Kyle Flettrich, Noah Hughes, Justin Simanek, Grant Upton and Will Warren; catchers Connor Manola and Greg Thompson; infielders, Trey Harrington and Eli Johnson; and outfielders, Preston Faulkner, Darius Jones and Nick Ray. They are joined by Trey Shaffer, Brant Husser and Trey Jolly, multi-position players who split time between the outfield and the mound.
In the incoming group are three JUCO national champions, three high school All-Americans and a transfer that previously was named one of the top pro prospects in the Southland Conference by D1Baseball.com. Based on Perfect Game’s recruiting rankings, 18 players were in the Top 1,000 nationally coming out of high school. Included in the number are four players in the Top 500 and one in the Top 250.
“They’ve been really mature, taking care of their business,” Riser said in the release of the newcomers. “The maturity of an individual speaks more so than their age. This group has the opportunity to be that next class to leave their mark at Southeastern for years to come.”
Among the newcomers is Central Catholic High alum and Southeastern freshman Bryce Grizzaffi.
This fall, intrasquad scrimmages are planned for 4:30 p.m. Tuesday and 3:30 p.m. Wednesday. The team will return to a drill-oriented practice Thursday at 3:30 p.m. All of the fall scrimmages and workouts at Pat Kenelly Diamond at Alumni Field are free and open to the public. Practice schedule updates will be announced on the baseball program’s Twitter account, @LionUpBaseball.