By Elizabeth Thomas, News Correspondent
Freshman second baseman Jason Vosler’s season stats after 23 games have set him apart from the rest of the newbies on the team.
He leads the team with 21 RBIs and his four home runs place him second, behind fellow freshman first basemen Rob Fonseca’s five. He had two triples and three RBIs in the March 27 victory over Boston College.
He attributes his .524 slugging percentage, which ranks third on the team, to guidance from his upperclassman and the coaches.
“I feel like a lot of the older kids helped us prepare,” Vosler said. “And all the preparation, workouts and drills during fall and winter was more baseball than I’ve ever done in my entire life … This is the best coaching I’ve ever had in my life. I didn’t have the best winter, and after fall I didn’t think I’d be starting, but the coaches really helped me with my swing.”
The West Nyack, N.Y., native said he did not have as difficult a time transitioning from home to college. He credits the baseball team with helping him make a smoother transition than most.
“I met the freshmen first and we all became best friends and now I am starting to get closer with the older guys on the team,” he said. “ It was really nice to already have a bunch of friends the first day of classes. The academics are hard here, but I am doing fine. I love Boston. I love walking around this city when it’s nice out. It’s pretty awesome here.”
As an only child, Vosler said he thrives on competition on the field, since he does not have to fight for his parents’ attention at game time.
“My parents come to about every other game and they alternate on away games on who will fly or drive down,” he said.
Vosler’s home field is now Friedman Diamond, but as a pee-wee, Matthews could have easily been envisioned as his next stage.
“From five years old to freshman year in high school I played [hockey]. I thought I would have more of a future in baseball so I dropped hockey and started to really concentrate on baseball,” Vosler said. “I miss hockey a lot though. I miss the adrenaline rush of getting to check when cheap shots were taken.”
Vosler said his parents didn’t mind him playing playing two sports growing up and were supportive no matter what ever he chose.
“[My parents] helped me train and do preparation all year around to get in the best shape for baseball, and I guess it paid off well,” he said.
For a student athlete, preparation doesn’t end with workouts on the field, but extends to the classroom. Weekend road trips and a week day game complicate the team’s weekly schedules.
“The professors are great and a lot of help. We have mandatory study hours [with the baseball team] so I get a lot of help with getting all my work done and questions answered,” Vosler said. “Tucker [Roeder, a senior co-captain catcher on the team] is actually my math tutor. I work with him a couple times a week and he helps me out big time with math. He’s very smart and [the tutoring] has improved my math grade a lot”.
While Vosler has seen his share of success in his first season as a Husky, he credits the senior leadership for much of the team’s success.
“It’s pretty cool having some of the freshmen in there helping out the team, but the upper classmen like Miller, Roeder, Puttress, and Leroux definitely do a lot of the work and help out everyone a lot,” he said. “Yeah, it’s cool to know that a couple of us freshmen can still help the team win and not just be a burden to the older guys.”
Head coach Neil McPhee has stated that he puts the freshmen in as starters because he has a lot of confidence in their ability to work with the upperclassmen.
“He’s part of that freshmen class, that’s a very young team, but a very good team,” McPhee said.
Part of the excitement of playing at a college in Boston for his first season is getting to experience the Beanpot tournament and show school pride for each sport. Vosler will be playing in his first Beanpot against University of Massachusetts-Lowell April 10 in Lowell.
“I’m really excited to see what the atmosphere is like with that,” he said. “I went to the hockey one and that was awesome.”
On a campus where hockey is arguably the sport on campus most attended by the student body, a lack of fans could have an affect, but Vosler said it has no affect on him.
“They get a little more attention then us, but that’s just New England’s atmosphere. They do get more attention and a lot more fans at their games, but I still feel very accomplished being a baseball player here,” Vosler said. “I think it’s tough because the field is off campus, but our field is unbelievably nice … we would like to have more fans, and we would still be playing as well either way, but yeah, more fans would be nice”.
