Posted on: Monday, October 1, 2001
UH baseball team opens fall practice
By Stacy Kaneshiro
Advertiser Staff Writer
A new era of University of Hawai'i baseball begins today when the Rainbows open fall workouts at Rainbow Stadium.
New coach Mike Trapasso and his coaching staff of Josh Sorge, Chad Konishi and Keith Komeiji will use the fall practice to evaluate players for the 2002 season.
"I'm anxious," Trapasso said. "I'm glad it's time to finally start doing some true evaluations to see what we've got. I've been waiting for this for about three months. This is my first chance to see the whole team in action."
Trapasso was an assistant to Danny Hall at Georgia Tech for the past seven years. He was named coach in May to succeed the retired Les Murakami, who built the program in 1971.
The tentative roster lists 22 players from last year's team. Among the notable position players back are second baseman Gregg Omori, the team's leading hitter last season at .367, 25 doubles, 11 home runs and 62 RBIs; outfielder Scooter Martines, a medical redshirt last year; catcher Brian Bock, infielders Lane Nogawa and Cortland Wilson and outfielders Chad Boudon and Kevin Gilbride.
Also back are starting pitchers Sean Yamashita and Chad Giannetti and closer Bryan Lee.
The starting rotation is without right-hander Jeff Coleman, who signed with the Oakland Athletics after they made him their 21st-round selection. Coleman was UH's most consistent starter, finishing 8-6 with a 3.75 earned run average.
Because his hiring came late, Trapasso was left scrambling to recruit. He had said one of his goals was to recruit the best players available locally. He quickly signed Mid-Pacific Institute all-state pitcher Ricky Bauer. Bauer, who is 6 feet 2 and 165 pounds, was a 39th-round draft pick of the Boston Red Sox in June.
Trapasso tapped the Mainland for freshmen infielders Danny Mocny, Derek Snell and Jason Carlson. He went the junior college route for catcher Grady Symonds, as of now, the only other scholarship catcher on the roster besides Bock.
Besides Bauer, Trapasso shored up the pitching by picking up right-hander Jason Piepmeier, another freshman.
There are also some familiar faces back. Pitcher Ian Jones and outfielder Trey Richards both played in 2000, but not last year.
There are walk-ons who survived the initial tryouts earlier. Among them are California transfer Brent Cook, who played sparingly for the Bears last year, and Gonzaga transfer Davin Morita, who prepped at Baldwin High on Maui. Cook, though listed as an infielder, is likely to be used as an outfielder, Trapasso said. Morita is a right-handed pitcher.
Other late JC transfers are infielder Schafer Magana and Julian Russell. There also are three recent Hawai'i high school graduates on the roster in catchers Chris Gallego (Kaiser) and Travis Mitsuda (Iolani), and designated hitter Kelii Correa (Kamehameha).
Fall workouts run through Oct. 20.
There are 121 days until the season opener against Florida State.
