The Rivier University baseball team celebrates its walk-off win over Colby-Sawyer Nashua's Harvey Woods Field late last April that qualified them for last season's GNAC tourney. The Raiders open their season with a week of games at Myrtle Beach, S.C. (Photo courtesy of Rivier Athletics)

NASHUA – The entire area – and region, for that matter – is covered in white

Temperatures with a few exceptions haven’t even been close to, well, outdoor game weather – at least not yet.

But the Rivier University Raiders have already caught baseball fever. Of course, they found a way around the weather issue as they’re at Myrtle Beach in South Carolina for this spring break week opening up their season in more spring-like conditions.

This is head coach Jimmy Smith’s fourth season at the helm, and now the roster is full of players he and he alone with his staff brought in, including the seniors.

“I think we have a great group of upperclassmen,” Smith said. “As well with the classes behind them, that I’ve recruited and brought into the school, really talented players as well.

“I can’t be more excited at how much our program has grown and what our players have built at Rivier compared to when I first got to campus and our seniors first got to campus to what our program is now.”

Last year was a benchmark year for the Raiders. They went on a tear late in the season and qualified for the GNAC tourney with a walk-off win, and then proceeded to get the program’s first postseason win in 18 years.

“I just couldn’t be more proud of the guys, and I’m just looking forward to them going out and playing baseball this year,” Smith said. “It’s a competitive,tough group of guys who understand the game, can execute and function in every type of situation, play in some important games, especially after last season having the first tournament win since 2007 last year, let’s see how they build on it.”

What was the key to last year’s run? It wasn’t, in Smith’s opinion, much to do with the tactical side. It was a meeting they had with a couple of weeks to go, Smith letting them know it was crunch time.

“Our guys knew they were talented,” he said. “But one day, before one game, we were staring down the back end of our conference regular season and we needed to win a lot of big games to do it. We just talked about believing in each other. The guys got to the point where they knew they were playing good baseball. They believed they could go out and beat anyone. So much of our game is self-confidence, being able to handle the good and the bad, belief in themselves and their teammates. They knew what they had in the goup, and knew what they were capable of.”

The landscape in college sports has changed with the transfer portal. Does Smith build through that or does he continue to span the landscape for high school talent and recruit?

“I think the way we use the portal is a way to supplement an already strong roster,” Smith said. “Guys certainly come and go, we certainly have had success bringing in some impact guys right way the second they get on campus. But I’m still a firm believer that you’ve got to go recruit four-year players out of high school, that you can recruit and develop over four years. And I’m always going to target guys in our back yard. Guys who are local. I think that is always going to be where we get our most talented players, and guys who are going to stick around in four years and buy into what Rivier is and how great of an institution it is. That’s always going to be our biggest sell.”

Smith won’t rely on transfers. “They’re always late and you never quite know,” he said. “Who’s going to end up where? Use of the portal is in combination and supplementing your recrutitment of high level players.”

Plus, Smith said, a lot of the players the Raiders have gotten through the portal are players they had recruited but opted to go elsewhere, and it didn’t work out.

“That’s where we’re most successful,” he said. “They may have us in mind. We dig through it. Guys that we know of and we’ve played against. It’s a small world out there, coaches talk and everyone kind of knows everyone, coaches, players, all of it. You’ve got to know who’s who, and be able to take advantage of those good players in the portal.”

But Smith has a special affinity for his first recruiting class, and the key to the Raiders’ season will be pitching. So things will start with his two top senior pitchers, Anthony Morro and Nate Bonacorsi. They’ve been at the center of the team’s pitching rotation since they were freshmen. Morro made 10 starts last season, went 4-4 and was on the mound for that big tourney win over Lasell early last May. He’s made 24 starts over his Raider career, a workhorse to say the least.

Bonacorsi, from Goffstown, was a Third Team All-GNAC selection, going 3-2 over eight starts with a career best 3.23 ERA.

“We’ve rolled them out there every single weekend, three years and now it’ll be four years,” Smiths said. “They’re certainly always going to give us a chance to win.”

And if they do that, the Raiders can call on their best advantage – an All-Region closer in former Alvirne standout Ty Baker.

The 6-2 Baker was First Team All-GNAC, was 1-0 with seven saves and a 0.81 ERA in 12 appearances, 22.1 innings of work. He fanned 17 and allowed just 10 hits and five walks for a .679 WHIP. In other words, he came into his own.

“I can’t remember the last time our baseball program had an All-Region type of player,” Smith said. “We feel confident going into the seventh, eighth inning if we have a lead, we have Ty fresh, ready to go we’re going to have a real good chance to win that game.”

Baker was the man during that six-game stretch at the end of the season. “We brough him in with a couple of outs in the seventh inning of a ballgame and he ended up pitching into the 13th,” Smith said. “We were really going to win or lose with him. … Having a guy like that on the back end is really important.”

Anoher key senior is the guy who gets the pitchers all in sync, catcher Dylan Aliberti, who played his high school ball at Timberlane. He’s been a rock, having started 99 games behind the plate going into this year, including 30 last year. He posted a .970 fielding percentage, had 172 putouts, 19 assists, and caught 14 runners stealing.He could also produce at the plate, 27 hits with six doubles but went 2 for 4 with an RBI and two runs scored in the tourney win over Lasell.

“He is a very important part with the way our pitching staff has developed,” Smith said, “and building relationships with those guys. Our pitchers trust him.”

And so does Smith, who allows Aliberti to call the pitches. “He’s the backstop for us,” Smith said. “There’s not a tougher kid out there.”

The Raiders can it, too. Smith did get great mileage out of a transfer from a highly successul Endicott program in junior outfielder Nathan Innefield, who was the team’s top hitter at .368 with 10 doubles, two homers and 25 RBIs. And another local product, Merrimack’s Owen Medlock, started 29 games and hit .329 with a .457 on base percentage and slugged .415. He had five doubles, a triple and 11 RBIs pus nine steals.

“He had a breakout season for us as a junior,” Smith said.

Other keys begin with Sebastian Reis at third base, who seized the starting job a year ago, hitting .264 with 15 RBIs and had an .864 fielding percentage. “He solidified the middle of the order, can really hit high level pitching, and is a guy our team can really rally benind.”

There’s former Nashua North standout Jayce Martinez, a sophomore infielder who started all 33 games last year at shortstop with an 897 fielding percentage as a freshman.

“He really learned what it took to play college baseball last year,” Smith said. “And did a tremendous job in handling what it means to play (shortstop) at this level. I’m really excited to see the jumps that he takes this year, just a super intelligent high IQ baseball player who is always going to make the right play.”

Smith likes the pitching and defense on this team, as he’s a firm believer in that theory, especially with doubleheaders galore. “Typically the teams that have the most success are the teams that have the most depth on the mound,” Smith said. “I feel really confident in that we have six guys competing for starting roles.”

That includes former Nashua South arm junior Jake O’Connor, who got eight starts last spring and fanned 37 in 39 innings. There’s another junior, Chris Volino plus sophomores Sean Kulhoff (Bedford, Trinithy) and John Horgan. The idea is to have compeition for the fourth starter on the weekends and mid-week non-conference games.

Smith is excited about some of the local freshmen he’s brough in. One is former North and Coffey Post outfielder Austin Suchecki, former Hollis Brookline lefty Dylan Morelli and Pinkerton righty E.J. Baker, and former St.John’s Prep hurler Rowan Cormier.

Smith is looking forward to seeing how Suchecki develops. “He’s a very well-rounded player,” he said. “He’s not even close to touching what his ceiling can be.”

The GNAC will have a new champion this season as Johnson & Wales left, but as Smith said, “Our conference gets more competitive every single year. It really does. There’s a lot of good young coaches in our conference now, who are all doing a great job recruiting, building their programs the right way, and it makes the conference really fun.

“There’s no easy weekends. You have to go out and play good consistent baseball day-in, day-out to give yourself a chance to win.”

Mitchell, which won the title in 2024, is the preseason pick in the coaches poll.

Meanwhile, the Raiders as they do every year will escape the clutches of Old Man Winter and depart for a week of games at Myrtle Beach where a kinder, gentler Mother Nature resides.

“This has been one of the crazier winters we’ve had in awhile,” Smith said. “Our school does a tremendous job of clearing off the turf field (Joanne Merrill Field) on campus, we’ve been out there pretty consistently, six days a week the last couple of weeks. … It (the cold winter conditions) is part of playing baseball in New England. I think it toughens you up. We have to play in it when we get going and get back from our trip. … You’ve just got to find a way. Those who handle it the best are typically your most successful.”

The good news is upon their return the long range forecast says they may catch a stretch of above average temps, but who knows. The Raiders work at local indoor facilities when needed. As Smith said, “We can only control what we can control; when it’s time to play ball, strap it up and go compete.”