ACCOUNTING FOR DURFEE
After lost 2020 baseball season, Ballston Spa grad Zach Durfee plans on graduating from Siena next fall
LOUDONVILLE, NY » Coming into the 2020 baseball season, his last at Siena, Zach Durfee was hoping to play a full slate of games after dealing with injuries in the years prior.
After 13 games into the 2020 season, Durfee came down with a hand injury. Less than a week later the season would be cancelled due to the coronavirus, ruling out the possibilities of a potential return.
“We had just gotten to Akron, OH around three in the morning. We had morning lift and then team breakfast. We had been hearing chatter of conferences cancelling or suspending indefinitely. There was a new one every five minutes on Twitter. We were kind of expecting it, but I think we were one of the last ones to announce,” Durfee said on the moments prior to finding out the MAAC would cancel the remainder of games.
The 2016 Ballston Spa High School graduate spoke about the moment further.
“As this point all of the seniors were sitting there eating
breakfast and we just sat there in silence. We didn’t know what to say. Coach Rossi confirmed it was over and in 30 minutes we were on the bus back to Albany from Ohio. When you see the word cancel, it hits differently because then there’s no hope to play. Some of us were hoping it would be a two-week thing. Once we heard that word it was just devastating.”
While the NCAA extended eligability to all spring student-athletes, Durfee has only one semester of courses left in his master’s program at Siena. While he plans on returning to the Loudonville campus next fall, he plans on graduating in December and moving on.
“I’m currently in the master’s program at Siena, but I won’t be using my extra year to play. I’ll be finishing my masters this fall and them moving on the the real world. I’m looking at jobs in the accounting field in budgeting or data analytics with a sports team,” he said.
Siena’s Head Coach Tony Rossi spoke about Durfee’s journey through the program the past four years.
“He really did progress since coming into the program. He struggled a little bit in the beginning, but then caught on and did a real good job. He played right field most of the time. He runs well and throws well. He did a good job hitting the ball. He was AllConference 2nd team one year.” Rossi continued. “Unfortunately he’s had some injuries that have slowed him down. He’s more of a gaps, singles and doubles hitter. He did the job in the outfield and at the plate when he was healthy. He had a pretty good career here.”
Durfee is a career .275 hitter for the Saints with 116 hits, 80 runs, 52 RBIs and 4 home runs.
The senior right-fielder had been dealing with tendinitis in the fall of 2019, prior to the season starting. He was able to start the 2020 season on time, after coming off a career best junior season where he hit .304.
While this season didn’t end as anyone in college athletics planned, the Saints record did stand out, especially since it would have been improbable to finish a full season without a win.
“Obviously you don’t want to go out 0-17 as your final season, but you know the mindset and Coach Rossi’s plan going in. We go into every game wanting to win, but it does sting. I feel like there were a few games that we could have won,” Durfee said.
“When you go down south, everyone’s trying to prepare for conference play and know the depth they have on their rosters. It’s important, especially if we had someone go down with an injury we would have our next man up ready to go.”
Since the season ended and society has tried to return to normal, Durfee has still been swinging. Now he’s getting used to golf clubs instead of baseball bats.
He added his thoughts on his time overall at Siena.
“I met guys who I’ll be friends with for the rest of my life and a lot of them are local, so I’ll get to see them even when we’re not in school. Through all the morning lifts and 20-hour bus rides, you get close with a lot of the guys.”
Like all other students, the senior had to adjust to remote, online-learning. He believes that being a student-athlete gave him an advantage.
“I think that because of baseball, the transition to online learning wasn’t as difficult as I thought it would be. Since we travel a lot, we learn a lot of time management. We are able to do a lot of our work on our own, without being able to meet with professors or be in class.”
While he is now looking forward to finished up his masters program at Siena and begin looking for jobs, he will always have fond baseball memories from Ballston Spa and Siena.
“Especially in high school baseball, you play with those guys from Little League all the way to high school. I love the coaches and they are great life coaches too,” he said.