Coaches Corner - Brandywine Baseball Coach Vinny Gallo

By: Jamie Tritschler - Athletic Communications Intern

Welcome to Coaches Corner! We caught up with Penn State Brandywine baseball coach Vinny Gallo to learn more about how he became a coach and to get his perspective on the team as they enter the final stages of the regular season.

JT: How many years have you been coaching?

VG: I started as an assistant coach at Brandywine five years ago. I had played at Brandywine for four years and after my coach had left, he asked me to help find his replacement and it wound up being someone I knew, who then asked me to be his assistant coach. I did that and was head of recruiting for four years and at the end of last year, that coach had resigned so I went through the interview process and accepted the position as head coach on June 27th. This is my first full year as head coach at Penn State Brandywine.

JT: How did you originally get into coaching?

VG: I was a former player. I played baseball since I was 5, but in high school and in the summers I played for Springfield American Legion in Delaware County. At the end of my career there, my uncle had been my coach and he asked me to come on as his assistant the next summer and gave me a pretty big role as a coach. There was a guy there named Dick Delaney, whose son played on our team, and he was a baseball, basketball and soccer coach at the NCAA Division I and II levels. He kind of took me under his wing as a mentor and ever since then, it's been my passion and a dream of mine to be a college coach.

JT: The team got off to a slow start this season, but the record for the last 10 games is 9-1. What prompted that turn around?

VG: When I took over the job, there were not many games on the schedule so I started to try and get as many games as we could and I wanted to make sure we were playing teams with a lot of talent. In the past we would play teams that weren't as good as us and we were not learning anything from beating those teams 15-0 or 10-0. When we made the schedule this year, we wanted to get a tough schedule, play more games in Florida when we would go on our spring trip, and get better competition. When we got to Florida this year, we played three or four schools that gave out athletic scholarships and it showed that they do and that we don't. It was a good experience for us and we learned a lot from it.

During that tough time at the beginning of our season, we just kept telling our guys it's going to get better; to just stay positive; and keep the same approach every day - keep working hard. We have a great group of guys who work hard and I give a lot of credit to my assistant coaches and to our captains because they've helped me to keep this thing together over the past few months when it's gotten difficult at times. I think one of our biggest weaknesses we had up until the beginning of this year was bunting. We couldn't bunt our way out of a wet paper bag and just from the last three games, we've gotten down some pretty big bunts that have scored runs. Earlier in the year we also struggled with having a guy on third with less than two outs and getting that running in. I think in a recent game, we scored five runs that way, by sacrificing fly balls or ground outs which was really good to see. Over the last week or two weeks, we've seen such an improvement on that since we started this winning streak.

JT: What are some of the big strengths of the current team?

VG: Our pitching, I would say, is second to none in our conference. It's led by senior captain Joe Samohod, who is one of our conference starters, and by senior captain Nate Forwood, who is our closer. Those guys really help to anchor the staff down. We have 15 pitchers on our roster, which is more than some teams in our conference have total players, and there isn't one pitcher on our roster who I don't feel confident in putting on the mound for a big game.

Our infield defense is the best we've had in the last 10 years and it's anchored down by Kevin Roche at shortstop. He's a sophomore and unfortunately, he's heading to University Park next year, but he might be the best defensive shortstop I've seen.

As far as our overall strengths it would be pitching and defense right now. The bats are starting to come around too. The last few games have had 10-plus hits and we're really excited to see that the bats are starting to wake up.

We're also in this situation where we have a senior closer and the guys who are up before him are freshman and they've really stepped up big time and done a great job. John Grader and Joe Batcho have really stepped up along with Matt Staiber. We're really asking three freshmen to do upperclassmen roles and they've done it better than most upperclassmen will.

JT: How many seniors will the team lose at the end of the season?

VG: We're losing three seniors at the end of the year and in my heart, you don't want to say that they're replaceable because they're not; they're all unique in what they do. But we've brought in a big class this year; next year won't be as big of a recruiting class, but it's a year we can go out and fill needs and hone in on individual talents. We can be picky in years like this. Right now, we have four verbal commits and at least one who 100 percent signed on the dotted line so we're excited about that.

We have three seniors that have stepped up and done things that most wouldn't be asked to do. For example Nate Forwood. When we recruited Nate, we recruited him as a shortstop and he struggled in his freshman year to the point where he wasn't playing at all. We were beating this team by a bunch of runs towards the end of the game, it was a long weekend, and we had run out of pitching so we just said 'go out there and finish up this game pitching, let's see how you do.' And at that point we decided Nate was a pitcher. We talked to him about it and he's the type of guy who will do whatever it takes for our team to succeed and he took that and ran with it. He's been our closer the last two years and we're really going to miss him as a player and with his team-first personality. He's done a really great job spreading that to the younger players as well. They understand now that they need to be a team-first kind of guy in order to be successful here.

JT: The regular season is starting to wind down. Do you notice if the seniors begin to a pass off the leadership torch to some of the younger players?

VG: You know, we have four captains, one of them is a junior , Tommy Crumlish, and he has been my go-to guy because he kind of has a beat on everyone. When I need to know something I talk to Tommy and when I need to know how people are feeling, I know he's very honest with me. So we'll have at least one captain back next year, but I don't pick the captains. Everyone on the team picks and the top-four vote getters become a captain. We do it that way because it's on them to pick who they want to be their voice. They're the voice of the players when maybe I don't understand what some of the younger players are looking for and the captains are able to come to be an explain it better.

JT: How does it boost team morale to have a freshman named as USCAA player of the week?

VG: I'm really excited about Rob [Spitaletta]. We recruited him from Glen Ridge, N.J., and his coach had emailed me saying 'hey, I got this guy, he's a middle infielder who plays some outfield would you be interested?' I knew we had a hole in the outfield and it was really what we were looking for so I reached out to his parents and him and they came down for a tour one day and I think they really fell in love with the place and with the opportunity that he would get the chance to play right away as a freshman. Not many schools would give you the opportunity right away like we do.

The player of the week nomination for him was really about how clutch he was last week against Schuylkill. He hits No. 2 in our lineup, and John Gorgone came up with runners on second and third and they decided to intentionally walk Johnny; they really put the game in the hands of a freshman. He came through like he was a senior who had been doing it his whole life with a base hit up the middle to give us a big win. We call him Spitz, and we're really excited about his versatility where he can play left, center, right, and second and short if we need him too. He's become a really good influence on our players and he's just a great player for us.

In years past you would have the upperclassmen who would resent the freshman a little bit, especially one who came in and started right away like Rob did, but we have a bunch of freshmen right now who are contributing. It's Brett Sheeran, Kevin Sessa, Brian Reynolds...we're relying on a lot of freshman and this year when they showed up for practice on the first day of the fall all the upperclassmen kind of said 'thank god we have these guys because we need them.' It was refreshing to hear and see that they accepted these guys right away.

JT: Do you have any advice for future Penn State Brandywine baseball players?

VG: My guys will tell you that some of the practices we have in the fall and towards the beginning of the spring are some of the toughest practices they've been through. Make sure you come in, in shape and ready to work hard and be moving around a lot; don't be standing around and doing nothing. Stay on top of your academics too. You could be the best baseball player in the world and it you're not eligible, you don't mean anything to us as far as baseball goes. Academics are the most important thing; that's why you're coming to Brandywine - to get a degree. We make sure we put a big emphasis on academics in the fall and the spring as well. Myself and my assistant coaches - we've been really hounding these guys about their grades. Just be ready to work hard.