The Independent – July 16, 2015
By William Geoghegan
SOUTH KINGSTOWN — Two college programs have sent four players to the Ocean State Waves this summer. One is the hometown University of Rhode Island, with a campus just down the road from Old Mountain Field.
The other is the University of Southern Mississippi, 1,366 miles away.
The Golden Eagles quartet made the trek as the first products in the kind of pipeline that can fuel summer baseball powerhouses. Tim Lynch played for the Waves last year and shared his experiences with his college coaches. Soon enough, Lynch and teammates Dylan Burdeaux, Nick Dawson and Chuckie Robinson were ticketed for South County.
With all four contributing – and three of them headed to the NECBL All-Star Game – the Waves couldn’t be happier with their southern connection.
“Tim said when he left that he had a great year, he’d like to come back and he’d like to bring some guys with him who are going to help us,” Waves head coach Eric Cirella said. “We’re thrilled that he did. They’re great ballplayers and I’m glad they’re on our side.”
The Waves have a number of emerging connections with schools, from nearby Bryant University to distant Southern California. The relationships with college programs can mean everything for summer baseball. A college coach who trusts a summer coach and franchise will funnel players their way year after year.
“They’re hugely important. Look at Newport – they’ve got Stanford, UCLA, Washington State and they get guys from there every year,” Cirella said. “That’s huge to be able to have a program that trusts you and gives you kids that are talented.”
Cirella hopes the connection to Southern Miss – a perennial contender in Conference USA – continues to flourish.
It’s certainly paying off in 2015.
Lynch was the Waves’ leading hitter in 2014 and has been even better this summer. The rising senior is batting a team-best .326 and leads the NECBL in home runs with nine. He ranks third in the league in RBI with 22. The nine home runs are a Waves single-season record. He set the mark last Saturday, with 16 games still remaining in the regular season.
Robinson, Ocean State’s everyday catcher, isn’t far behind Lynch on the league home run leaderboard. He has six, to go with 18 RBI and a .282 average. Robinson was the NECBL’s Player of the Week earlier this month.
Burdeaux was slower to heat up but has been the team’s best hitter over the last few weeks. He followed Robinson’s Player of the Week honor with one of his own and is batting .304 with three homers and 16 RBI.
Lynch, Robinson and Burdeaux were all selected to the NECBL All-Star Game.
Dawson has dealt with a few more ups and downs at the plate, batting .169, but he has remained a regular in the lineup and has made only two errors at second base.
“Those guys are carrying us right now,” Cirella said. “They’re cerebral and at the same time, they’re coachable. They understand how to make adjustments and they’re willing to do it.”
They also have each other to lean on. Burdeaux and Dawson drove up together in Dawson’s car, all 22 hours, with Lynch in a convoy behind them. Robinson, who hails from Danville, Illinois, flew in from there.
As they reunited at Old Mountain Field, they were in a comfort zone already.
“It’s been fun,” Burdeaux said. “At least we know somebody when we come up here. Even though we’re meeting other guys, we still have these three guys to come back to for anything. It’s been fun. We’ve enjoyed it a lot.”
Lynch, the first-ever Golden Eagle to play for the Waves, was eager to see his friends enjoy a similar summer. He was a late addition to the Ocean State roster last year and turned into one of the team’s best players.
“Summer ball is important and I had a great experience here last year,” Lynch said. “The guys were awesome. [Owner Matt Finlayson] is fantastic and playing for coach Cirella is great. The area is awesome, host family is awesome. I really just had an amazing experience. There aren’t many guys who go off to summer ball and say, ‘Man, I’d love to come back here,’ but that was the case for me. I definitely let these guys know how awesome a time I had, and hopefully, they’re having the same kind of experience.”
Their success has helped the cause, but a summer of baseball five minutes from the beach was going to be pretty good anyway.
“It’s a lot different than Mississippi but it’s been a lot of fun,” Robinson said.
All four Waves were key players for the Golden Eagles in the spring, helping spark a 13-game win streak to end the regular season, which had the club as college baseball’s hottest. The streak ended in the conference tournament, though, and Southern Miss did not receive an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament.
“We definitely thought we had a resume good enough to get into the tournament,” Lynch said. “It was tough. You hate leaving it in the selection committee’s hands.”
As they moved forward, the disappointment added an extra dose of motivation for the summer and beyond.
“Our coach kind of talked to us as a group and told us to come up here and get after it,” Burdeaux said.
They’re doing just that.
The pipeline from Hattiesburg, Mississippi to South Kingstown, Rhode Island won’t be drying up any time soon.
“The connection with Southern Miss is tremendous,” Cirella said, “and I hope it stays that way for years.”