Fairhaven Native Dominating for Bridgewater State

By Tim Weisberg, The Standard Time (New Bedford)

BRIDGEWATER, Mass. -- Those who face off against Bridgewater State University junior second baseman Sean Riley might just think, by watching him play, that he's wise beyond in his years. But in actuality, he's wise because of his years.

Although he's hardly a graybeard at the tender age of 27, the Fairhaven native is significantly older than his BSU teammates and the players he opposes. But he thinks of it not as older but as more experienced, and he can now add a dominant and historic first season with the Bears to his list of experiences.

Riley was selected as the Massachusetts State Collegiate Athletic Conference (MASCAC) Player of the Year this past week, one of five Bears on the All-Conference team. Already, he's helped BSU to the MASCAC regular season and tournament championships in just his first year with the team, and he'll lead them into the NCAA Division III tournament beginning this Wednesday.

Riley is batting .390 on the season with eight home runs, a Division III-leading 25 doubles, six triples, 52 runs scored and 40 RBIs. He also leads the conference in hits (62), doubles, triples, homers, total bases (123), extra base hits (39) and slugging percentage (.774), and is second in RBI, third in batting, fourth in on-base percentage (.462) and sixth in walks (21).

"He's an impact player, and he hits for power," Bears head coach Rick Smith said. "He leads off for me, because he can change a game. One pitch, he can change the game. We want him to be on base as much as possible. It makes a big difference to have a guy hit the first pitch of the game for a home run, which he's done a couple of times, or to lead off the game with a guy on second base. It tends to work out well."

The Bears are one of the most successful programs in Division III over the past 10 years, and Smith — who was also named MASCAC Coach of the Year for 2012 — sets the tone.

"I think the worst Bridgewater's finished in the past 10 years is, like, third in the conference," Riley said. "It's kind of unspoken, but Coach Smith expects to win, so we expect to win."

Riley was used to winning growing up, but it took a couple of years of not feeling like a true winner to get him motivated to return to college baseball.

He was the varsity shortstop for four years at Fairhaven. The Blue Devils reached the sectional finals his freshman year, and returned to the state tournament for his sophomore and junior seasons before missing the postseason in his senior year.

"From there, I went to Eckerd College in St. Petersburg, where I played baseball for two years, and I also played a lot of golf," Riley said. "I thought I wanted to be a golf pro for a living. But I don't know what happened. At some point, I just said, 'school's not for me' and I decided to go to work."

Riley spent some time working on the docks in New Bedford, "slinging fish," as he put it, but he also spent two years as the assistant golf pro at Ballymeade Country Club in Falmouth.

"I was making good money, but I figured out it wasn't for me, either," he said. "I was working crazy hours and it just wasn't worth it. And I also realized that working another minimum-wage job wasn't my thing, either, so I decided to go back to school."

But deciding to go back is a lot easier than actually doing it, especially if you have designs on playing baseball and still have two years of eligibility. Not a lot of colleges are looking to give a spot on a baseball roster to a 27-year-old.

"I've known the Bridgewater coaches probably for about eight years now," said Riley. "One of the assistants there, Matt Poitras, plays on the same Cranberry League team as me each summer. He and I had conversations about me going back to school, and he tried to get me to go to BSU."

And it wasn't just Poitras who was pushing for him to join the Bears.

"He's a little older than most of the kids on the team, but we still wanted him to play for us. I've watched him play the last five, six years in the Cranberry League," Smith said. "He was playing with all of my alumni, from my 2000 team and even my 1996 and 97 World Series teams. He's been playing with that level of players for a number of years."

First, Riley had to attend Bristol Community College to get his grades up in order to be admitted to Bridgewater. Once he made it to BSU, he decided on operations management as his major, but with no clear-cut career goal in mind.

"I don't have a plan. I just want to get that piece of paper, and then I can figure out what I want to do with my life," he said.

With his educational future all mapped out, it was time to start thinking about a return to collegiate baseball. Riley suffered a separated shoulder last summer, and that made him a little apprehensive about joining the Bears.

"Well, not really apprehensive," he said. "I was more worried about being in shape, and I wasn't sure how the shoulder would react or how my body would hold up throughout the season."

Smith said that was one of his initial concerns with Riley was getting him back into baseball shape.

"He's been playing competitively the last few years, but he wasn't in baseball shape," Smith said. "When he came out in the spring, he remembered what it was like to run, but he didn't know what it meant to be in shape. He was behind the rest of the kids, but he worked extremely hard to catch up."

Riley said one of the big motivational factors heading into the season was when Poitras told him that caught him totally off guard.

"He told me before the season, 'you should win Player of the Year if you're playing the way you're capable of.'" Riley said. "When I heard that, I was thinking, really? So I went out every day and did my thing to try to be the best that I could, and it turned out, he was right."

Riley said that at first, he was a little worried about how guys that were so much younger than him would take to an "old man" being in the clubhouse.

"There's a big group of players on this team that went to regionals last year. So we have a lot of talented guys," he said. "I just came in and tried to do my part. I didn't really say much at first, just tried to come in and do what I was supposed to do. Kids nowadays, they don't want to hear the talk, they want to see what you can do on the field. After our trip to Florida, they were starting to think, 'Ok, this guy's pretty good.'"

His teammates also took to calling him "Dad," a nickname that was started in jest but a role he quickly began to embrace.

"I've been preaching to these kids to make sure they go to class and to do well in school, because that's what it's really about," he said. "I didn't listen to that advice, and that's why I'm 27 years old and still in school. And they seem to be listening."

"He's been in so many situations, in so many levels of baseball, that when they're out on the field and even off it, the kids know how to look toward him for advice," Smith said. "And he feeds off that."

There are two other former Blue Devils on the Bears' roster, and although they're younger than Riley, they knew what he could bring to the team and have benefitted from being teammates with him.

Freshman pitcher Adam Mullen has known Riley for years; Riley was friends with Mullen's older brother Pat.

"My family and his family are still friends. My dad and his dad still talk every day," Mullen said. "When Sean told me he was going to come back and play for Bridgewater, I thought he was kidding. But I guess he wasn't. We all ragged on him when he first showed up — and we still do — telling him his age is catching up with him, that he shouldn't be out trying to play with teenagers. But it's all just in fun."

Junior catcher Keane Costa is also from Fairhaven, and had a terrific season himself as he was recently named First-Team All-Conference. He said he only had a passing acquaintance with Riley before this spring.

"We'd see each other occasionally and talk about baseball," Costa said. "I'd always heard stories about how good he is. So when I heard he was going to be on the team, I told everyone he was going to be the best player in the conference. I guess I was right."

Costa said that while Riley is indeed like having a coach on the field, he's also the one who keeps things light.

"He's probably the funniest person on the team," he said. "He keeps us loose. If things are going bad, he acts like a goofball to keep our spirits up. He's a good person to have on the team, in addition to being such a great player."

Mullen said Riley often comes out for visits with him on the mound when he's struggling.

"He always says things that are comforting, and it's also comforting to know that he has my back," Mullen said. "In my first collegiate start, I had a rough first inning. In the middle of that inning, he came out to the mound, said a couple of jokes to loosen me up, and after that, I went the distance and had only three earned runs as we won 13-4. That's what he can do, even more than his stats."

That being said, Mullen has also been quite impressed by Riley's stats, too.

"He broke the single-season record at Bridgewater for doubles in, like, the first half of the season," Mullen said. "I've rarely seen him on any base besides second after he gets a hit."

In addition to that record, Riley also owns the BSU single-season mark for extra base hits and total bases. He's closing in on another record as well; he needs just two more runs scored to tie Ed Nadeau's record set back in 1997. He's already (along with Costa and two other teammates) tied the team record for most games played with 43. He'll get his shot at breaking both marks in the NCAA regional tournament, beginning this Wednesday.

"We've got a great shot," Riley said. "We have great pitching, we play great defense, and we get timely hits when it matters."

It also helps that Riley is finally back in baseball shape, and Smith thinks he's just beginning to peak.

"His numbers toward the back half of the season prove that," Smith said. "And he still has a lot more to give. Next year, I think he'll dominate even more. He still hasn't reached his full potential yet."

Not yet reaching his full potential is what brought Riley back to college in the first place. Although he was unsure at first, he knows now it was the right choice.

"I feel like I definitely have an advantage now," Riley said. "Ever since I left school, whenever I played baseball I would also think to myself, 'I wish what I know now, I knew back when I was in college.' And now I have that chance."