WALTHAM, Mass. – Bob DeFelice's 54^th and final season as the only head baseball coach in Bentley University history will get underway this weekend with the Falcons playing a three-game series against the Florida Tech Panthers in Melbourne, Fla.  Friday's opener is scheduled for a 6 pm first pitch and the games on Saturday and Sunday are both noon starts.

All three games will be streamed at https://www.sunshinestateconference.tv/floridatech/.

Bentley, 17-11 a year ago when the Falcons played an abbreviated schedule exclusively against Northeast-10 opponents, has three All-Conference honorees back this spring. Senior righthander Brandon Ostiguy (East Greenbush, N.Y./Columbia HS) earned first-team accolades as a relief pitcher, senior left fielder Liam Sears (Springfield/Pope Francis HS) was a second-team honoree and junior third baseman Steve Rizzuto (Belmont/Belmont HS) was voted to the third team.

 Sears and Rizzuto are two of the team's three returning .300 hitters. Sears, in his first year as a starter, batted .364 with 22 RBI and a .545 slugging percentage. He probably will move to first base this season. Rizzuto hit .333  and was second on the team in both RBI (29) and runs scored (22). The third is sophomore second baseman Jackson Walonis (Walpole/Walpole HS), who had a .313 average as a rookie. All three had on base percentages over .450.

Returning starters also include graduate students Kyle Halloran (Hopkinton/Hopkinton HS) and Charlie Auditore (Walpole/Walpole HS), juniors Tim Zupkus (Middlebury, Conn./Holy Cross HS) and Joe Boushell (Mansfield/Wheeler School), and sophomore center fielder Joe Cacciatore (Lexington/Lexington HS).

Halloran, a .280 hitter, will likely move from short to left fielder, with Boushell (.278) taking over at short. Zupkus (.270) was errorless in right last spring, and Cacciatore made only one error in center. Auditore (.227) started 26 of the team's 28 games behind the plate.

Graduate student Jared Brooks (Hollis Center, Maine/Cheverus HS) is the only returning starting pitcher. Coupled with his two years at Stonehill, the lefty has a 10-9 record, a 4.70 ERA and 108 strikeouts in 122.2 career innings.

Ostiguy was 3-0 with a 2.11 ERA and a .177 opponents batting average in nine relief appearances and grad student Jimmy Hodgson (Newton/ Newton North HS) was 2-0 with a 3.79 ERA in 19 innings

Newcomers who could play a role are Worcester State transfer pitcher Sean Mahan (Woburn/Matignon HS), junior college transfer Brian Lindsay (New Durham, N.H./Kingswood Reg. HS) behind the plate, Stonehill transfer Eddy Beauregard (Paxton/Wachusett Reg. HS) at first and Stetson transfer Tyler Gonzalez (Windham, N.H./Lawrence Academy) in the outfield.

While Bentley has yet to be outside in preparation for the season, Florida Tech already has four games under its belt. After an opening day loss to Rollins, the Panthers swept a three-game series from Tuskegee by a combined score of 44-7.  

After this weekend, Bentley's 17-game Florida schedule will resume  Feb. 25-27.