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CBD Interview with UNLV’s Stan Stolte

by Brian Foley
by Brian Foley 0 comment

College Baseball Daily continues our countdown to the start of the 2017 season with interviews with coaches across the country. Today we check in with UNLV head coach Stan Stolte who is entering his second year in charge of the Rebels program. You can check out the full interview below.

1. UNLV is coming off a 24-32 campaign while going 14-16 in Mountain West play. What are your expectations for the upcoming season?

Expectations are to compete for championships here, only 4 teams qualify for conference tournament so a good team may get left out, its a very competitive conference but  we expect to be in the mix. We have very few seniors so we need the junior class to step up this year, we need some production out of those guys who have been thru the grind a couple times.

2. The Rebels return their top four hitters including  Payton Squier. who led the team with a .375 average. What makes him such a strong hitter at the plate and a leader on the field?
 
Payton knows the strike zone very well, can hit lefties as well as righties and the tougher the situation, the better he performs.. We moved him to catcher later in the fall and that may be his spot professionally, we shall see. He may be one of the tougher outs in league and is nice to be able to pencil him in the 3 hole every game.
 
3. The Rebels struggled on the mound in the 2016 season with a staff ERA of 6.00 and this season don’t return a weekend starter. How do you think the weekend rotation will shape up this season?
 
We actually were better than our #’s. Weekends we were pretty good at times, We had 6 good guys that aren’t here anymore. (3 seniors, 2 drafted juniors and top returning guy out for the year) We really got hammered in the conference tourney at New Mexico to blow our ERA outta the water. We only return less than 20% of our innings from last year with no senior pitchers on the roster which makes for an uneasy off season but a couple of our juniors have to step up this year for us to have a chance. The rotation is still wide open but Alan Strong and Larry Quaney left the fall holding down a couple of the spots, We have 3-4 other guys in the mix.  there’s games we may have to mix and match which will be a first here, we’ve always ran 3 guys out there that gave us 6-9 innings. but they will compete and have shown some good signs in the fall.
 
4. Do you see any of the freshmen making an immediate impact this upcoming season?
 
We have one freshman that we feel will make an immediate impact, Bryson Stott (Desrt Oasis HS) is a lefthanded hitting inf that looks like he going to be hard to keep out of the lineup.We have a very small class of new incoming kids coming in. But the ones we got will contribute.
 
5. One of the moves you made this offseason was bringing in former MLB All-Star and Hall of Fame pitcher Greg Maddux as an assistant coach. How effective has it been to have one of the best pitchers in baseball over the last 30 years added to your staff?
 
Definite upgrade over the guy we had last year! (myself) Greg can get his point across in one sentence unlike anyone I’ve ever been around, never says anything just to say something.  He brings so much knowledge and efficient ways to do things daily. Even though baseball will always be baseball he realizes the college game has some different entities to it that isn’t as relevant in professional baseball. He’s a great teacher, keeps it simple and our kids are so much better than they were in September so hopefully that carries over when its real this spring. Bottom line is tho- its on the kids to perform, he can’t toe the rubber for them.

Brian Foley is the founder and Lead Editor of College Baseball Daily since its inception in 2005. He has covered two CWS, multiple NCAA Baseball Regionals, and other special events across the country. In addition to his duties with College Baseball Daily, he has covered games for Inside Lacrosse and been featured in USA Today, Wall Street Journal among other publications. He can be contacted by email at editor at collegebaseballdaily.com and followed on Twitter @BFoley82.

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