Jake:     First of all, you guys didn’t have a great year. You did have a couple of high points, you did win a couple of good games. What do you feel was your best win?

Asa:     I thought our best win was early-on against Maryland (March 2). It was our first win ever against an ACC team in our program’s history. And then Maryland went on to do fairly well in the ACC. Having beaten a team like that actually started the frustration of the season because we saw we could beat a good team.

Jake:     Any games you were particularly disappointed to lose?

Asa:     If you saw our record, there were a lot of games that we should have won. I think the games that were most disappointing to us were a lot of the midweek games. Generally the way it works is that you play all your Conference games on the weekends, and during the week you play a lot of the local teams. We played Manhattan, LIU, Fordham, St. Peters, Stony Brook, Ryder and St. John’s, for example. Early on, we had a game against St. Peter’s (March 12) that was rather disappointing. The guys just seemed to go through the motions and they beat us pretty good. (14-3). When your season is going bad, you seem to have those types of games.  It was an indication of what was to come from this team - - they seemed like some games they came ready to play and other games they didn’t.

Jake:     You did have the emergence of a new pitching ‘ace,’ Brody Fontaine, who led the team in wins with six. You saw some promise out of him?

Asa:     Yeah, Brody did a good job, threw a lot of innings. We used him a lot - - and ended up calling him ‘Frequent Fontaine.’ Brody is the kind of guy who isn’t going to overpower anyone. There are some days when he is very effective, and has last three wins all came in the final three weeks of the season.

Jake:     One of your best returning players this year was pitcher/outfielder Anthony Sarno. How did he do?

Asa:     He started off slow, like most of our other seniors did. Then the Delaware weekend (April 4-5), he hit three home runs in a game and really turned around from that point forward and at times carried the offense. So, he had a pretty good senior year. He also pitches and he had an arm problem throughout the year - - it was a weird forearm injury- - so he didn’t pitch as much as we thought he would.

Jake:     How is recruiting coming along for next year?

Asa:     As of right now, we have five guys coming in - - three freshmen and two junior college transfers. We have a freshman coming in - - a middle infielder named Chris Greco from New Jersey - - we’ll see how much he can hit. We have a kid from Syosset named Michael Poland who’s going to be a catcher and an outfielder. He runs very well for a catcher, plays a little outfield, a switch-hitter but he’s a little immature physically - - a skinny kid. Then there are the two junior college guys from Monroe Community College - - one is a left-handed pitcher and the other one is a third baseman.

Jake:     With Sarno graduating this year, who do you think will be your best players next season?

 Asa:     Our third baseman, Matt Prokopowicz (a sophomore in 2008), was a freshman All-American, but had a little bit of a down year this season for him, but he still hit over .300 with eight home runs and led the team in hits and RBI's. He’s the kind of guy you look for to lead the team. I think next year to have more success, we will need more depth throughout the line-up.- - that’s kind of what we lacked this year. I think we will have to look for guys who had ‘down’ offensive years this year to step it up next year. Getting back to Prokopowicz, he was one of those guys who everyone in the league knows, and they are able to pitch him very carefully so he does not’t hurt them too much.

Jake:     Kind of like the ‘Barry Bonds Syndrome.’

Asa:     That’s exactly right.

Jake:     What positive things can the Hofstra Baseball Team take from a difficult season?

Asa:     Certainly, individual performances from certain guys you can take as positive. Especially, we had a lot of younger pitchers who got to grow and work off the experience they had. And as a team, you get to learn from the mistakes you made. If you look at our schedule from this year, you will see that we lost a lot of games by two runs, or three runs or less. When you are on a team like that you get the feeling that you’re ‘close,’ and you just have to make more good plays. It’s certainly better than getting blown out every game, which was what happened the first year I coached here. This year, with a lot more close games, it gives you the feeling that if you do a little more hitting, a little better pitching and a little better defense, there’s going to be a lot more wins.

Jake:     This year, was there one part of the game - - hitting, pitching, defense - - that was your achililes heel?

Asa:     It was like our offense hurt us all year. We were not’t able to score runs that you should be able to score in college. Situational hitting wasn’t good. Our bunting was below average, our hit and run plays were not’t working, we were not not’t stealing well. Basically, we were not’t playing strong ‘small ball.’ Overall, our hitting was the one aspect of the game that hurt us the most. Our conference has turned into a real hitting conference in the last three years or so, and that puts more pressure on the pitchers to keep the scores down, especially when your own team isn’t scoring.

Jake:     How would you describe the way college baseball game has evolved ?

Asa:     There have been lots of changes. Guys are getting stronger . . . and with the metal bats, the game has kind of evolved into a three-run homer type of game. Get ‘em on and whack ‘em in.

Jake:     How do you like working at Hofstra University?

Asa:     Hofstra has a school and baseball program that has started to turn the corner to become a competitive program in the Colonial Athletic Conference and it takes time and a lot of hard work but we’re starting to get there. We’re getting through our second recruiting cycle here, and we’re getting the kind of players who we think will win. We’re excited about the team coming up as it seems our pitching is getting better. As that continues to get better, Hofstra will have better records and things will work out.

Jake:     What kind of conference is the CAA"

ASA:     In the RPI Rating, the CAA is ranked the ninth best conference in the country right next to the Big East. So the conference is good. The conference will hopefully get stronger and stronger as the teams and facilities get better.