Ewing, NJ…The College of New Jersey\’s 2008 baseball team has been tapped for the No. 14 spot in the 2008 Collegiate Baseball Newspaper\’s Division III Pre-Season Poll. The 2008 Lions will be led by interim head coach Dean Glus, who replaces Rick Dell who resigned this past summer to accept a position with Major League Baseball.
Glus inherits a squad that has earned three straight New Jersey Athletic Conference Championships as well as NCAA bids in 2004, 2005, 2006, and 2007. The Lions went 34-11 in 2007 and had two players tapped as National All-Americans adding to the program\’s long list of accomplishments and honors.
The Lions will open up the 2008 season with an ambitious schedule. For the third straight year, TCNJ will head West with a spring training trip to Arizona. While in Arizona, the Lions will play 11 contests, including three match-ups against nationally ranked opponents. Pre-season second ranked SUNY Cortland will give the Lions an early test as will games with No. 13 ranked Wheaton College (MA), and No. 30 ranked Keene State College. When they return to New Jersey, the Lions take on a handful of non-conference opponents before jumping into an extremely tough conference schedule since the NJAC has produced seven NCAA Division III Champions since 1978.
Traditional tough NJAC rivals include William Paterson, the 1997 NCAA Division III Champions and Montclair State University, the 2000 NCAA Division III Champions as well as defending NCAA Division III Champions, Kean University. Additional NJAC competition will come from Rowan University, Rutgers University-Newark, Kean, Rutgers University-Camden, Richard Stockton and New Jersey City University.
Non-conference match-ups for the Lions will include contests with contests with nationally ranked opponents such as No. 29 ranked Gwynedd-Mercy College and No. 10 ranked Johns Hopkins University. Additional non-conference contests with Haverford College, Arcadia University, Stevens Institute of Technology, Ursinus College, Neumann College, Moravian College, and Messiah College help complete the 2008 schedule for the Lions, all helping to give TCNJ some tough independent competition that should prepare the Lions for a return to the NCAA tournament.
At season\’s end, the Lions will look to four-peat as the NJAC Champions with an eye on returning to the College World Series after taking fourth place six years ago.
No stranger to TCNJ\’s baseball program and TCNJ\’s department of athletics, Glus enters his 17th season with the College this fall after serving as the baseball program\’s assistant coach for the past 16 years. In addition to his role as TCNJ\’s baseball assistant coach, Glus was tapped as the College\’s director of athletic and recreational facilities and scheduling after the retirement of Frank Harris in the spring of 2006.
Glus is a former three-year letterwinner for the Mountaineers at Division I West Virginia University. As WVU\’s top reliever, Glus helped his teams earn NCAA Tournament bids in 1985 and 1987.
Since arriving at TCNJ in 1990, Glus has been involved in many facets of the game on and off the field for the Lions ranging from pitching, catching, infield play, strategies of the game, and recruiting. In addition to his involvement with numerous TCNJ baseball camps and clinics, Glus also served as a national coach in Estonia, for the Junior and National baseball teams in the Baltic States in 1991. In 1996, Glus was tapped to serve as a coach with the Roberto Clemente All-Stars in San Juan, Puerto Rico. In the summer of 1997, he traveled to Guam and the Philippines while participating in Major League Baseball\’s International Asian tour.
see schedule and rankings
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