NEW YORK—Junior starting pitcher
Gordon Graceffo (Cranford, N.J.) was named to the Preseason All-BIG EAST team in an announcement by the conference office on Wednesday afternoon. The results of the annual preseason poll of league head coaches was revealed and Villanova was predicted to finish sixth in the conference standings.
Graceffo won all four of his starts during the abbreviated 2020 season, going 4-0 on the year with a 1.42 ERA spanning 25 1/3 innings pitched. He gave up just 21 hits and seven walks on the year while holding opposing batters to a .216 average against him and pitching to 1.105 WHIP. Graceffo is slated to return to the weekend starting rotation in 2021 along with senior
Jimmy Kingsbury (Phoenixville, Pa.) on a pitching staff that has both veteran experience and youthful upside entering the season.
The highlight of the 2020 season for the Wildcats came in the second game of the year when Graceffo went 5 1/3 innings in his first start and was the winning pitcher as Villanova knocked off No. 3 Arizona State to tally the highest-ranked victory in program history. In his one-plus season with the Wildcats, Graceffo has appeared in 21 games with 17 starts while recording seven wins and a 3.98 ERA over 97 1/3 innings.
Villanova also returns nearly its entire starting lineup from a year ago, including three infield starters in senior first baseman
Ryan Toohers (Florham Park, N.J.), senior second baseman
Pat O'Neill (Eagleville, Pa.) and junior shortstop
Dylan McNary (Jefferson, Mass.). Senior center fielder
Chris Rotondo (Redding, Conn.), senior outfielder
Sam Margulis (Pennington, N.J.) and sophomore
Lucas Latrenta (Greenwich, Conn.) are also returnees who saw significant playing time in 2020.
Latrenta batted .333 with three home runs and led the BIG EAST with a .595 slugging percentage as a freshman en route to earning Freshman All-America accolades. Toohers is the most experienced of the cadre of returning position players and has played in 147 career games for the Wildcats while batting a .262 with a .377 on-base percentage, seven home runs, 61 runs batted in, 30 doubles and 68 walks. Rotondo batted .298 a year ago and led the team with 16 walks and a .485 on-base percentage.
Villanova raced out of the gates in 2020, building momentum with the Arizona State win and finishing with a 9-5 record when the season was halted. The Wildcats earned 19 points in the preseason poll and finished behind Connecticut (45), Creighton (44), Seton Hall (35), St. John's (33) and Xavier (26). Butler (15) and Georgetown (7) rounded out the poll. Each of the top three teams received at least one first-place vote.
