Bravehearts to Return 11 Players From 2016 Roster

Wednesday, December 28, 2016

GoLocalWorcester Sports Team

The Worcester Bravehearts are returning 11 players off of their 2016 team for the 2017 season, six of those players are from Massachusetts.

The Bravehearts will announce the remainder of the roster in early 2017.

The Bravehearts opening night is set for Friday, June 2 against the Bristol Blues at Hanover Insurance Park.

The Roster

Dante Ricciardi is a second baseman, who will come back for his third season with the Bravehearts. Ricciardi hit .301 with 37 hits and 23 RBIs in 36 games last season. He is a student at St. Petersburg College but will transfer to Bryant University in Rhode Island next fall.

John Friday, a first baseman, out of Franklin Pierce University & Marlborough, MA returns to the Bravehearts for a second season after having a breakout season in 2016, leading the Bravehearts with 50 hits in 44 games played. He also hit nine home runs, two of which came in the championship series against Nashua.

Tom Walraven, a shortstop out of the University of New Haven also returns for his second season. Walraven posted a .252 batting average and was third on the team with 42 games played last season.

Nick Barry is a junior catcher at UMass-Lowell who appeared in 30 games for the Bravehearts in 2016 and was an important part in guiding the pitching staff to a 3.79 ERA, second-best in the Futures League.

Joe Caico is an outfielder currently attending the University of New Haven, returns for his third season with the local nine after launching Nive home runs in 2016 and driving in 15 runs.

Greg Kocinski of Marist College joined the Bravehearts late in the 2016 season and had a major impact on the offense by hitting .333 in 11 games with six hits in the playoffs.

The Bravehearts also return four key pitchers from last season’s staff.

For the second straight season, the Bravehearts will return their wins leader, Brady Furdon of Wheaton College. In 2016, he won six games for Worcester and led the team with 48 1/3 innings pitched.

Frankie Moscatiello is a junior at Saint Thomas Aquinas College in New York and led Bravehearts’ starting rotation last season going 3-0 with a 1.76 ERA in 35 2/3 innings pitched for the team. He also earned the honor of being the starting pitcher in the All-Star Game.

Tyler Lonestar is a sophomore at Saint Mary’s College in California and worked out of the bullpen for the Bravehearts in 14 games last season. He also went 3-0 and had 26 strikeouts with a 1.90 ERA.

Jack Boylston of West-Boylston will transfer to UMass-Lowell in 2017. He pitched in seven games for the Bravehearts in 2014 with one save and was the winning pitcher in the longest game in team history, a 17-inning affair against the Brockton Rox on July 26, 2014.

Maurizio Devita a junior at Concordia College in Bronxville, NY joined the Bravehearts late in the 2016 season and provided an immediate impact out of the bullpen. He appeared in six games, including two playoff games, giving up just one run and striking out 11 over those outings.

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