By PJ Potter -- ASSISTANT SPORTS EDITOR
It is not every day that a club baseball player makes the unthinkable jump all the way up to the Division I level to compete at the highest stage in college baseball.
It is even less common to find one who becomes the best pitcher on the team’s staff.
Entering the week, Bowie Matteson, a fifth year senior from Saugerties, New York, was ranked third in the Colonial Athletic Association with a 2.56 earned run average.
Not many people would realize Matteson took an unusual path to becoming the pitcher he is today, considering his impressive statistics so far this season.
Coming out of high school, Matteson was too small to be recruited to a Division I school, so he decided to go to Boston University, a school without a college baseball program, to focus on academics.
While at Boston, Matteson joined the club baseball team so he could still play. Things began to change for him when he started to grow and his talent began to overshadow his teammates on the club team.
“Once I got to BU, I realized that through playing club baseball, I definitely had more to offer on a bigger stage,” Matteson said.
Matteson was then put in touch with an amateur scout, who directed him to Coach John Russo of Hofstra. The sports science major transferred from Boston to Hofstra after his sophomore year, but he did not have a spot on the Pride roster as a junior, so he was redshirted.
Matteson finally stepped onto University Field as a senior, where he found himself in a major role as an innings-eater coming out of the bullpen or as a spot-starter. Making 13 appearances and eight starts, Matteson finished his 2015 campaign tied for first in strikeouts on the team with 31 and just one-third of an inning shy of leading the team in innings pitched, totaling 53.2.
Matteson’s biggest issue was keeping a low earned run average, ending the year with a 6.04 ERA. The answer to his problem was not difficult to figure out: He needed to develop an effective changeup.
In the offseason, the Hofstra baseball team added John Habyan to the coaching staff to manage the pitchers, who came in with an impressive resume. A former MLB pitcher for 11 seasons, Habyan was also the head coach for St. John the Baptist Diocesan High School for 17 years. His guidance was exactly what Matteson needed to improve himself as a college pitcher.
“His knowledge and expertise coming from his professional background in baseball has been a huge help for me as far as putting together what stuff I have the mound and being able to use it effectively more so than I have last year,” Matteson said.
So far, it appears that the offseason acquisition has panned out for Matteson, who has fared well against top programs around the country as a solidified weekend starter for Hofstra.
His debut against No. 4 Texas A&M gave his coaches and teammates more to look forward to for the rest of the season, giving up just two runs in four innings.
Matteson found himself facing another SEC team, Missouri, the following week. The fifth year senior was nothing short of special in his second outing, tossing seven solid innings against the Tigers, allowing one run on four hits.
A few weeks later, Matteson had another tough task in front of him, Ohio State.
But, just as the entire season has gone for him, Matteson threw the best game of the weekend for Hofstra, only giving up two runs over 6.2 innings.
These outings were not easy, but prepared him well for conference play knowing he has what it takes to be a Division I starter.
“It’s a certain level of comfort being able to know that what I have can get hitters out on any spectrum of the game,” Matteson said.
Last week, the Pride opened its CAA play in Maryland against Towson, picking up one win out of three games. Matteson, of course, led the way in Hofstra’s only conference victory in 2016, going 7.2 innings while holding Towson to two runs.
Matteson will look to be the head of the Pride in its hopes to swing the season around after a struggling start.