Padron Hopes To Continue Winning Ways At St. Brendan

Just over five months ago, HSBN’s Miami-Dade County Coach of the Year Luis Padron was celebrating a state championship victory at Westwood Christian.

This season he’ll try to bring the same feeling over to the St. Brendan Sabres after taking over for HSBN District 4A-16 Coach of the Year Joe Cubas, who stepped down this offseason. The Sabres were one game away from making it to states last year. Padron is now challenging his team to perform even better on the field and in the classroom.

“We expect every year to win, but the key is that team chemistry is good, and they’re doing well in school, which is important for me. That’s actually my top priority,” Padron said.

With “full ride” baseball scholarships a rarity, Padron stresses the importance of having good grades for kids who wish to play college baseball.

“I expect every kid to have at least a 3.0 grade point average,” Padron says. “There’s no one hundred percent baseball scholarship. Its called student-athlete and the ‘student’ word comes before athlete.”

On the baseball diamond, St. Brendan will head into 2014 with lofty expectations even though 12 seniors graduated from last year’s roster. A mix of seniors and underclassman will play key roles for the Sabres, who have bought in to Padron’s coaching philosophy.

“I tell everybody that winning cures everything, they know who I am, I played St. Brendan all four years at my other school,” Padron said. “They’ve picked up immediately on how we do things.”

The team leaders will be senior catcher Danny Sirven and senior outfielder Dennis Rivadineira. Sirven hit .439 with 15 RBIs while playing first base last season, good enough to land HSBN second team All-Miami-Dade honors. Rivadineira hit .298 with 12 runs last season, and will lead in the outfield this season.

“We just have to show everybody that we’re here to work hard everyday and come out there and play our hardest, and hopefully everybody follows,” said Sirven, who has a 4.49 G.P.A and serves as St. Brendan’s student council president.

With many of the Sabres top hitters gone from last season, the team will approach games with a small-ball mentality instead of trying to swing for the fences. The team had a collective average of .368 last season and had five games scoring 10 runs or more.

“We have a lot of kids that hit base hits as opposed to last year where we had a lot more deep threats,” Sirven said. “It’s a different approach, but we still score runs.”

The Sabres will also count on sophomore outfielder Christian Martin (.349, 13 RBI), senior infielder Gaby Soto and senior right handed pitcher Alex Cabrera, who finished with a 1.56 ERA out of the bullpen for St. Brendan in 2013.

Fans can also look for some fresh faces to emerge, like Mater Academy East transfer Renny Tolentino. The senior pitcher hit .532 and posted a 5-1 record with 30 strikeouts and 1.15 ERA on the mound for the Class 2A Scorpions last season. In the field, 14-year-old freshman Tyler Page will begin the season starting at shortstop.

As Padron introduces St. Brendan to a different brand of baseball, the Sabres will compete in one of the tougher districts in Miami-Dade county. With the FHSAA realignment, District 4A-15 now includes Florida Christian, LaSalle, Mater Lakes Academy, and Monsignor Pace. Five out of the six teams won their respective districts last season, with Pace and Florida Christian making it to states.

Even with that much success in one district, Padron and the Sabres are embracing the new challenge.

“I’d play the Marlins if they gave me a game,” Padron said. “In order to be recognized among the best you have to play the best.”

The team believes playing against the best teams during the regular season will make them a better club when the games count the most.

“We’re gonna be a scrappy team, we’ll compete. I think we have a chance as long as we play mistake free baseball,” said Soto, who holds a 4.2 G.P.A. “We should be able to compete every game in and out and hopefully make it further than we did last year.”

With so many competitive teams within the district the Sabres will jockey for a playoff position throughout the season. If the team can find a way to manufacture runs, they will be in the running for a third straight district crown.

“Our goal is to make it to states every year. If we don’t make it we consider it a failure,” said Padron.

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