Athlete of the Week: Joe Borrelli-Baseball

Joe Borrelli, a grad student and co-captain of the Hopkins baseball team, epitomizes what it means to love the game. After an elbow injury his junior year caused him to miss a year of play but not of eligibility, Borrelli began searching for a solution. He found one, in the form of an MBA program at the Carey School of Business.

Borrelli looked into masters programs as a result of his injury; he wanted to get the most out of his eligibility as possible. In the end, Hopkins was again the perfect fit.

“It was a great opportunity to get an MBA and also keep playing at Hopkins,” he said.

The program he is enrolled in at the Carey School of Business allows him to fulfill his four years of eligibility despite his missed season. He commutes to school on an almost daily basis, giving him little time to focus on anything other than school and baseball.

“I don’t have a lot of free time between traveling downtown to school and playing baseball. It’s one or the other almost all the time,” he said.

Borrelli seems more than happy to make the sacrifice. Baseball has been his passion since childhood.

“I’ve been playing organized baseball since I was six, really. I started playing catcher at seven,” Borrelli said. After 16 years of baseball, the need for an “extracurricular” starts to seem less significant.

Despite this, though, Borrelli nearly stopped playing baseball after his senior year of high school.

“I also thought about playing football in college,” he said. Borrelli, who played four years of football for Ramapo High School in Wyckoff, N.J., even went so far as to visit Georgetown for football. But in the end, Hopkins baseball won out.

The Jays were thankful he was on the diamond, not the gridiron, on Monday. After two tough losses to conference foe Swarthmore on Sunday where Borrelli went 4-7 with two walks, splitting time between catcher and designated hitter, “Joe Bo” lead Hopkins to a 10-9 win over McDaniel.

Borrelli drove in a career high seven RBI’s, including a game-winning two-run home run in the bottom of the eighth inning to improve Hopkins’s record to 14-10 and 7-3 in the Centennial Conference.

So far, it has been a frustrating season for Hopkins baseball by their standards.

“We graduated a lot of really good players from last year, but we have just as many good players on our team this year,” the co-captain said.

The problem, he says, is that something just isn’t “clicking.”

“We’ll have one game where we pitch great, but just don’t score any runs, and the next game we’ll score, but the pitching will be off,” he said.

Borrelli remains hopeful though. “We’re starting to turn things around. Hopefully we’ll get hot right before playoff time and go back to Wis. [for the College World Series],” he said.

Borrelli’s hope is that the comeback win over McDaniel will help spark a turnaround, and will give the team what they need to start winning consistently.

“A lot of younger guys are starting to really step up,” he said. “Hopefully they’ll keep doing better as they get more comfortable in the lineup.”

For Borrelli, this season is huge. As well as it being his final season of collegiate baseball, this is also Borrelli’s “first year as a full-time catcher,” he said.

In previous years, when he hasn’t had such a secure spot in the lineup because of older, proven catchers like draft pick Rob Sanzillo (A&S ’07), Tony Margue (A&S ’08) and All-American John Swarr (A&S ’10), Borrelli said it was much tougher to find his stroke.

“When I wasn’t hitting every game, it’s tougher to get the timing down. It’s tougher to get in a groove,” he said.

This year, though, particularly of late, Borrelli has been finding his stride. As things hopefully pick up after the McDaniel game, Borrelli seems optimistic; “[Over the] last few games [I’ve been] really hittin’ my stride.”

Last year, Borrelli started 19 games getting 73 at bats and hitting to the tune of a .356 average with two home runs.

This year, with new, more wood-like metal bats that have decreased offensive college baseball statistics nationwide, Borrelli has started 18 games and leads the team with a .375 batting average.

He’s also tied for second on the team with three home runs and four doubles.

To Borrelli, though, his numbers mean little compared to the team’s success. All he cares about is helping his team win the conference and go to the World Series. And if Borrelli has any say, the team is headed in that direction.

“Starting with our next game against Gettysburg, we’re going to be a force to be reckoned with,” he said. “If I have a message to any other teams, it’s this: watch out, ‘cause we’re getting hot.”