At the beginning of the season, Head Baseball Coach George Valesente sat down with every senior on the team and asked whether or not the team felt it should continue having just one or two captains, or if it should have every senior take on a leadership position.

The tight-knit group of seniors decided they all wanted to share the team’s leadership positions, and the seven-member crew of captains was born.

Valesente said this system has worked well.

“It seems to be working pretty well, and they’re doing a good job and taking care of things the way they should,” Valesente said. “It’s nice to know that there’s seven of them thinking in the same direction.”

The Bombers were riding a 17 game winning streak before falling 9–5 to SUNY-Cortland yesterday and are 12–0 in Empire 8 play and 20–7 overall.

The seven seniors manage to work together to maintain control of the team, despite having drastically different personalities.

Senior right fielder Rob Raux said he takes  a quiet leadership role, while senior second baseman Todd Czerno is the team’s spokesman.

“I’m more of a quiet guy, but guys like Todd are more of the spokesman,” Raux said.

The team believes this system works well because instead of having just one or two captains shouldering all of the responsibility, all seven seniors can be accountable for team matters.

“All the seniors are responsible for the ownership of the team and the issues that happen or don’t happen,” Valesente said.

Freshman third baseman David Ahonen said having seven people to approach has helped him make the transition from high school to college.

“Sometimes when you have one or two leaders it can be hard to approach them,” Ahonen said. “Having a bunch of people to approach and talk about adjusting to college life has helped me out a lot.”

Valesente said the work the seniors put in with the freshmen off the field has translated into success.

“A lot of the work that gets done with the younger players, we don’t necessarily see,” Valesente said. “It gets done in the locker room, or off campus or when they’re together as a team, maybe at a party. They’re doing a lot of stuff behind the scenes.”

The seniors have been so successful in leading the team because they have been following the good example of last year’s captain and new Assistant Coach Jeremy Peters ’07.

“[Peters] taught me a lot about how to be a leader and to lead by example,” senior pitcher and first baseman Shane Wolf said. “He’s someone I like to look up to, and it’s nice to still have him around.”

Raux said he emulates his leadership style around the example Peters set last season.

“If there was ever a problem on the team, he made sure it was solved,” Raux said. “It was always a top priority. If I could be anything like him it would be a great accomplishment.”

Valesente said seniors can get stressed but hopes the baseball field can be a safe haven for them.

“Hopefully they feel that the baseball field can be a haven where they can forget about everything,” Valesente said.