The Utica Baseball team is coming off an unfortunate end to last season. The Pioneers lost in the first round of the Empire 8 playoffs, but rallied back in two straight elimination games to book their trip to see St. John Fisher in the championship game. The team ultimately fell to Fisher for the second time in the postseason, making St. John Fisher Empire 8 champions.

Sophomore pitcher Justin Notargiacomo said that a lot of people expect [the baseball team] to be a lot worse than last year after losing a bunch of seniors and losing some to the transfer portal. But with a good start so far including going over .500 in Florida and a big Empire 8 win against cross-town rival Suny Poly under their belt, the team is eyeing to exceed expectations.

“Every year our goal is to win the championship and we know with how tough the conference is, it isn’t going to be easy,” Notargiacomo said. “We still think when we’re out there we’re better than whoever’s on the other side and that we’re gonna win the game we’re in. We know what it’s going to take to win it all this year, and we know we’re gonna have to be at our best come playoff time, but we think there is a good chance this is the year we call ourselves champions.”

The Baseball schedule runs all the way to May 3rd before the top teams compete at a neutral location for the Empire 8 title. The Pioneers will certainly have that circled on their calendars with the desire to avenge their championship loss last year.

“We got a lot of young guys that are stepping up this season and we think we’re gonna be a tough team to compete against and we expect to surprise some people this year,” Notargiacomo said.