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By STEVE KRAH
Blake Ciuffetelli began his college baseball days in Pocket City and is finishing them in Music City.
The left-handed pitcher and 2019 graduate of Castle High School in Newburgh, Ind., redshirted his first season (2020) at the University of Southern Indiana in Evansville, Ind., then hurled three for the Screaming Eagles (2021-23) while earning a Computer Information Systems degree.
Ciuffetelli (pronounced Choo-fa-tell-ee) is a graduate transfer at Belmont University in Nashville, Tenn., in 2024. He is pursuing a Masters of Business Administration while toeing the slab for the Dave Jarvis-coached BU Bruins. A.J. Gaura, a former University of Evansville assistant, is the team’s pitching coach.
Coming out of a April 12-14 series at Valparaiso (Ind.) University, the 5-foot-11, 180-pound Ciuffetelli has made 16 mound appearances and has one win, 32 strikeouts and 13 walks in 28 2/3 innings.
After earning his MBA, he plans to get a job in the technology industry in Nashville.
“My favorite things about Belmont are the people that I am around every day and the beautiful campus,” says Ciuffetelli, 23. “My favorite thing about Nashville is just being able to live in the city.
“It’s a good change of pace from living in Indiana.”
In Ciuffetelli’s three seasons at Southern Indiana, he got into 55 games (33 out of the bullpen) and went 7-6 with one save, 96 strikeouts and 41 walks in 107 innings.
In 2023, he made 24 appearances (17 in relief) for the Tracy Archuleta-coached Screaming Eagles and went 3-1 with 48 strikeouts and 17 walks in 54 1/3 innings.
“My favorite memories at USI are playing with a great group of guys every year,” says Ciuffetelli. “Coming in with a big freshman class you make some tight-knit relationships that can last a lifetime, so being able to stay in touch with some of those guys has been great.”
The southpaw played both D-I and D-II at USI and D-I at Belmont. He describes the contrasts between the two.
“I see a difference in a lot of different aspects of the game on and off the field,” says Ciuffetelli. “On the field, at the D-I level, the teams and players are more physical and more fine-tuned in the way they play the game. At the D-II level we would play teams that had lots of raw talent, but the guys were missing one or two things that would set them apart from the group sending them to the next level.
“Off the field at the D-I level, I feel like we are given more resources academically and for non-baseball activities. I feel like USI did a good job in their first year of being D-I offering these services with having such a quick turnaround with the transition.
“I know the process of hiring all the new employees and setting up these resources isn’t easy and to be able to do that in a quick turnaround was good to see from a student-athletes perspective. At Belmont, these resources and have been set in stone for a while and has been really helpful with my whole transferring process.”
On the mound, Ciuffetelli uses a low three-quarter arm angle and mixes a fastball at 83 to 85 mph, cutter at 80 to 82, slider at 78 to 80, curveball at 74 to 76 and change-up at 78 to 80.
Ciuffetelli describes his bullpen approach versus that of a starting pitcher.
“There is a different mindset you have to have when coming out of the bullpen,” says Ciuffetelli. “Depending on my role in the bullpen I could get multiple innings or just one batter.
“Coming in with the mentality of being ready to go from pitch one is essential. That’s one thing I struggle with sometimes. I feel like I come out of the bullpen with a starter mindset, and I need to work on having more of a reliever mindset in those situations.”
Ciuffetelli roots for the St. Louis Cardinals and identifies Los Angeles Dodgers left-hander Clayton Kershaw as his favorite baseball player.
Born in Evansville as the son of Vinnie and Bonnie Ciuffetelli and younger brother of Nick Ciuffetelli (who graduated from Castle in 2017 and now resides in Indianapolis), Blake grew up in Newburgh. He played Newburgh Junior Baseball and on their all-star team then travel ball with the Evansville Leathernecks his first three years of high school and the Evansville Razorbacks his senior year.
His coach at Castle was and still is Curt Welch.
As a collegian, he played two summers — 2021 and 2022 with the Ohio Valley League’s Henderson (Ky.) Flash.