Excitement is building around the Doncaster Baseball Club ahead of a new-look 2024-25 Summer League men’s season.
With a new coaching panel and restructured playing schedule, this season promises to be vastly different to previous summer competitions.
The Doncaster men’s program welcomes new head coach Brendan McDonald, who will be assisted by three-time club champion and former coach Nic Unland, with American import Matt Josselyn to serve as club pitching coach as well as taking the mound.
A two-time club champion and former head coach of the Doncaster winter program, McDonald spent two years at Cochise College in Arizona from 2005-07 before transferring to Southern Arkansas University where he earned First-Team All-Conference honours. In his five years at the helm of the club’s winter program from 2015-19, the Dragons won the B Grade premiership and were promoted to A Grade for the first time in club history.
Doncaster finished in the bottom half of the ladder last season, with a 10-19 win-loss record. McDonald is looking for better results this summer.
“There’s no ceiling on what we can achieve,” he said.
“We’ve got a good mix of talent and experience, and I expect us to play meaningful games at the end of the season.”
That talent and experience includes familiar faces such as Jean Alvarado, Marcel D’Avoine, Brian Chen, Dakota Gibson and Luke Utting. Highly credentialed players such as Dan McGrath (Adelaide Giants) and Mitch Ellis (Melbourne Aces) will also take the field around ABL commitments. And exciting young prospect Aimon Dowling, currently in the US playing with the Australian Under 18 National Squad, will pitch for the Dragons when he returns after round one.
Doncaster also welcomes infielder Rolando Curiel, who played for the Dragons this past winter season and will make his Summer League debut for the club after crossing over from Williamstown.
“Rolando is coming off an excellent winter and really shores up our defence while adding a key bat to our lineup,” McDonald said.
Hebert Rodriguez, who joins Doncaster from Newport, and Derek Medlin are among others who are expected to see plenty of game time this season.
Assistant coach Unland brings a wealth of knowledge to the Dragons. A versatile defender, he has been a staple in the top third of the Doncaster lineup for the better part of a decade. He has served as club coach and received the Lew Lewington Trophy as MVP of the Men’s Firsts in the 2020-21, ’22-23 and ’23-24 seasons.
The 2024-25 season has several new features, particularly for the men’s firsts. All Doncaster Premier 1 weekend games will be played on Saturdays, starting at 4pm. The season opens with six weeks of Saturday games followed by 12 weeks of games on Tuesdays and Saturdays.
Premier 1 Reserves will play all of their games on Saturdays, from 1.30pm.
The top eight in the 16-team Premier League will qualify for a double-elimination finals bracket, which will be played over the first two weeks of March to declare this year’s champion.
Doncaster has welcomed the changes, which do not impact the women’s program despite the club having only one playing field.
“We are excited about our PL1 and PL2 teams moving to Saturdays, as well as both men’s and women’s programs being able to host midweek games at Deep Creek,” McDonald said.
“It’s been awesome working with [women’s head coach] Sam [Hamilton] to bring the two programs together during the pre-season, and those midweek games provide great opportunities for us to support each other throughout the year.”
Baseball Victoria CEO Chet Gray said the fixture changes had “been in the pipeline for a while”.
“It’s all about freeing up more time slots for juniors,” Gray said.
“In previous years, the only time slots we had for under 14s, 16s and 18s was 9am-11am on Sundays. This was ludicrous. We were handcuffed, and it was restricting our capacity to grow.
“Now there are more options for when to play junior games and allow a greater capacity to develop young players and grow the game.”
The 2024-25 Men’s Premier League Firsts season kicks off this Saturday as Doncaster hosts Waverley at Deep Creek. First pitch is at 4pm.
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Preview by John McDonald
Doncaster Baseball Club 