Perhaps more in hope than prescience, Binghamton University baseball head coach Tim Sinicki spoke to the need for the team’s freshman and newcomers to step up at the outset of this season, a year removed from the Bearcats’ most successful season in its Division I history.
A lean 6-foot-3 left-handed hitter, Pete Bregartner has answered the calling, as just an 18-year-old freshman. He has led the Bearcats to second place in the America East with a .326 average — a team-high just ahead of fellow freshman and fellow 2008 Pipe Dream Male Rookie of the Year Award nominee Brian Ivan.
But before things were going so well, before Bregartner took the place of not just one, but two standout Bearcats from last year’s AE Tournament runner-up club and solidified himself in the leadoff spot — he embarked on a record-tying hit streak that lasted just long enough to see Binghamton climb back into contention and he secure his place as Pipe Dream’s 2008 Male Rookie of the Year.
On March 25, Bregartner collected half of Binghamton’s four hits in a 9-2 loss to Wichita State, a team that made the NCAA Super Regionals last season. It was the third of five consecutive Binghamton losses, but the start of a Division I school record 14-game hit streak and a break out season for Bregartner.
The problem was, as Bregartner kept hitting, things only got bleaker for the team. Binghamton opened conference play with a four-game sweep at the hands of Stony Brook in Bregartner’s first game as the leadoff hitter, dropping the Bearcats to a season-low 12 games under .500 and into last place as Bregartner’s hits.
With the Bearcats’ hopes of repeating as regular season champions potentially on the line in their second conference series, against Maryland-Baltimore County, Bregartner delivered the stand out performance even as some of the veterans faltered. With Binghamton trailing 8-5 in the ninth, his leadoff single sparked a game-tying rally. He dropped down a key sacrifice bunt in the 10th, finishing 4-for-5 as BU went on to its first conference win and the first of 10 wins for Binghamton in its last 12 games.
Binghamton won the next three games and Bregartner’s streak hit 14 before BU lost to Siena, 6-2 on April 15 — the last game BU has lost. Bregartner went 0-for-4. Over the length of the hit streak, which tied all-time great Brendon Hitchcock’s 2004 mark, Bregartner went 25-for-54, .463.
A large part of the credit is due to the kid from East Islip, who not only had to replace Jeff Monaco, a member of the Bearcats’ prodigious graduating class of 2007, in right field, but Henry Dunn, a Louisville Slugger Freshman All-American according to Collegiate Baseball newspaper, as a spark plug in the leadoff spot.
And he knows the right things to say to boot.
“I’m just trying to make the team better, just trying to get on base for the guys behind me,” Bregartner said after reaching the 14-game mark. “I’m just seeing the ball well right now.”
With four wins over this past weekend, including a three-hit, three-RBI performance from Bregartner, Binghamton is two games below .500 and two games out of first.
Bregartner has four home runs, tying him for second-most on the team. His 47 hits also tie for him second, and his 29 runs tie him for third. He leads the team with 11 sacrifice hits and is 8-for-11 in stolen bases.
Entering the season, the Bearcats were not supposed to be this good. Most of their top hitters and two of their aces departed last spring after a once-a-decade type of season.
But look now: with half of the 2008 AE schedule in the rear view, the Bearcats have legitimate title hopes again. And no player has been more responsible for that success than Pete Bregartner.