The Beacon’s Stephen Youkoski sat down with Wilkes Baseball Coach Mike Guy to discuss the upcoming season.
Last year, the Colonels amassed a record of 22-16 with an 11-13 record in Landmark Conference play.
Q (Stephen): How long have you been at Wilkes?
A (Coach Guy): I’ve been here going on my second season.
Q: Where were you coaching prior to coming to the university?
A: The last 11 years, I was at the University of Scranton coaching in the same conference, the Landmark Conference.
Q: Do you have any other experience aside than being a head coach?
A: Associate head coach, assistant coach, played in college, coached a local travel team as well.
Q: Where did you play at in college?
A: I played at Salem Community College in South Jersey, then I went to my four year college at University of Maryland – Eastern Shore down by Ocean City, Md.
Q: Why did you decide to come and coach for Wilkes University?
A: I really liked the majors that were offered here. I think Wilkes provides a number of interesting majors as well as the master’s programs. Being local, from Scranton, I’ve always been familiar with wilkes and their sports programs. I thought this was a really great place to recruit student athletes with the variety of majors and the great facilities we have.
Q: How did you feel about the first season in the landmark conference?
A: First year, pretty good. Would’ve liked to win the championship, but overall we went over .500. We were very familiar with the landmark conference, as a lot of the teams we might have played out of conference in years prior. Then coaching at Scranton, knowing those different programs in the Landmark Conference, it gave us a little bit of a headstart with getting involved in the Landmark.
Q: How important do you think it was going .500 for the younger guys on the team?
A: I think it was really important. I think we were a really young team. We graduated five seniors on the team, but we have a majority of the guys coming back this year. We had, whether they were freshman, sophomores, or juniors, they played significant roles. With the incoming freshman class as well, we are used to the conference and set up. We know the different styles of play that each team has. Some teams are trying to out hit you, other teams are trying to outrun you. Some teams have power arms, some teams have a crafty righty or crafty lefty. Just being more familiar with the style of play of each of the Landmark Conference teams will definitely help us out this year.
Q: How do you feel that past season had an influence on recruiting?
A: I think that for three or four weeks we were in the top 25 in the country. Recognized by the NCAA so that certainly help with recruiting when we were doing really well in the beginning of the season. I think the freshman coming in, when they saw the facilities, they saw the majors, they met the players and coach staff, I think it was a really good recruiting year for our freshman class coming in; especially with the success we had in our first year
Q: Do you expect to see those top 25 rankings again? If so, do you have a sense of how often we can be in that position?
A: I hope every year. I hope we win the Landmark every year. Ultimate goal is to make a regional run, postseason run hopefully. Get to a world series and give ourselves a chance to compete for a national title. It comes with a lot of hard work and sacrifice, especially with being a division 3 athlete. There’s no money involved, no NIL deals involved. Were not really sponsored by anybody. Guys who come here are firstly students, secondly athletes. They have a true passion for the game and there’s no extrinsic rewards they’re receiving for playing the sport. It’s all intrinsic and a lot of self motivation
Q: How do you think a local team like Misericordia going on such a run, how does it affect our guys?
A: I think it really inspires them because they are 15 minutes down the road. If they can do it, why can’t we do it? I know a lot of our guys know the Misericordia guys as well, whether they played with them in high school or they played against them in college. Some of them play with some of the Misericordia players in collegiate leagues. Coach Egbert over there for Misericordia has done a phenomenal job the last 15 years, 20 years that he’s been there. We’re trying to do the same thing here at Wilkes. Hopefully we get a chance to take that title from Misericordia and bring it back to Wilkes
Q: What is your favorite memory here at Wilkes?
A: My favorite memory would be when we played Catholic. In the eighth inning, we were down by four runs, and we had an 11 run inning. So, Catholic was another top 25 team in the country, went to regionals. We came back and we won the game by six runs that day. It was the biggest inning we had, it was at home in front of our fans. It was against a conference opponent, which was one of the best innings I’ve seen coach collegially, against one of our in conference opponents.
For more information regarding the upcoming baseball season and schedule, which will be released later this year, visit www.gowilkesu.com or the Landmark Conference at www.landmarkconference.org.