Medaille Sports

Head Coach: Paul J. Smaldone
Phone #: (716) 880-2330
Email: ps429@medaille.edu

The Medaille College baseball team will hit the diamond under the tutelage of third year head coach, Paul J. Smaldone.  Coach Smaldone brings a wealth of experience and knowledge to the diamond as he is a member of the Western New York Baseball Hall of Fame and the Canisius High School Sports Hall of Fame.  Coach Smaldone has coached locally for over 25 years, including 18 years as a varsity assistant coach at Canisius High School where the Crusaders won 9 Georgetown Cup titles during that time.  Coach Smaldone is currently serving as the Coordinator of high school baseball for the Buffalo Bisons.  He played baseball collegiately at Fordham University before finishing up his schooling at the University of Toledo College of Law.  Coach Smaldone was a practicing attorney employed by the New York State Unified Court System for over 38 years.  Paul and his wife Mary Ann reside in Buffalo and have four children and three grandchildren.

Coach Tim Slawek is returning for his seventh season as an assistant coach for the Maverick baseball team.  His four years of service include the Co-AMCC Championship team in 2007.  Prior to coming to Medaille, Tim played collegiately at St. John Fisher College while earning a B.A. in History.  He was named captain for the 2002 and 2003 seasons while participating as both a starting pitcher and an infielder.  Tim was also a threee-time Section VI Champion while playing at Cheektowaga Central H.S..  A four-year letterman there, he was named All-State as a pitcher his junior year and was honored as an Academic All-WNY and a second team All-WNY first baseman in his senior season.  Tim is currently an active participant and coach in the AAA MUNY summer league.

Coach Josh Sova is entering his third season on the Medaille Baseball Team staff. Josh attended St. Bonaventure University for his undergraduate school where he earned a Bachelor’s of Science in Physical Education.  While at St. Bonaventure, he was a four-year letter-winner on the basbeall team.  He played on the 2004 Atlantic 10 Championship Team and the 2006 Atlantic 10 Runner’s Up. He enjoyed most of his success in his last two seasons as he became a regular in the line-up.  Sova led the team and ranked second in the Atlantic 10 with a (.398) batting average in conference contests and finished out his senior campaign with (.450) batting average (18-40) during the final month of the season, May 2008.  During that season, Sova produced (13) multi-hit games and struck out just three times in his last (54) at-bats.  Entering his first season off the field of play, Sova plans to keep the players focused with their heads in the game.  “After playing under Larry Sudbrook (SBU Head Coach) for four years I feel that I have obtained a lot of very useful baseball and life-long lessons and when informed of this job opportunity I jumped at the chance to try to help develop young baseball players into good ballplayers and hopefully I can help develop them into model citizens”.  Josh returns to the WNY region after living in the southern tier during his stay at  St. Bonaventure.  While in high school Josh garnered many honors while he played three sports at Lockport Senior High School.  Son of Kimberly and Charles Sova … lettered in football, wrestling, and baseball at LHS … was voted Section 6 North Division Defensive Player of the Year in football as a junior and was a two-time All-State Selection as a catcher. Email coach Sova at joshua.e.sova@medaille.edu.