By Jerry Briggs
Special for The JB Replay

Lorenzo Morresi grew up in Italy, in the town of Macerata, located about 100 miles to the north and east of Rome and about 30 miles to the west of the Adriatic Sea.

Soccer is king in Italy. Always has been, and, probably always will be.

But somewhere in the city of Macerata, in an apartment inhabited by a couple of hard-working grocery shop owners, at least one television set was dialed in last weekend to the NCAA Austin Regional baseball tournament.

As Morresi played perhaps the tournament of his young life for the UTSA Roadrunners, his father and mother stayed up late to watch and cheer him on. How late?

“They were, like, sleeping and watching,” Morresi told The JB Replay Wednesday afternoon. “They were back home in Italy. They were trying to stay up to watch the game. Because, at 6 p.m. (in Texas), it’s like 1 a.m. over there.”

If one or both of his parents dozed off during the games, it would be understandable.

Morresi said in an interview under the oak trees at Roadrunner Field that his mom and dad run a business in Macerata.

In a town of about 40,000 that sits on a hilltop between two rivers in central Italy — the Chienti and the Potenza — Morresi’s parents manage a fruit and vegetable shop.

So, given the effort required in their day job, combined with the thrill of watching NCAA tournament games after midnight, some level of exhaustion would be expected from Valter and Nadia Morresi.

Morresi assured that his dad, a former baseball player, was definitely tuned in.

Valter Morresi, as his son pointed out, played the game from a young age, as a second baseman, primarily.

His son, one of the unsung heroes of UTSA’s historic victory in the Austin Regional, said his dad continued to play past his youth on club teams — until he was 29 years old.

“He loves baseball,” Lorenzo Morresi said. “He wanted to be here (in Texas) so bad, to watch us play.”

Valter Morresi likely was thrilled with what he saw on ESPN, regardless, because his son put on quite a show.

He had five hits in 12 at bats in the regional tournament, including three hits in two games against the Texas Longhorns, the No. 2 team in the NCAA tournament.

As his parents know, it was a show of perseverance. Also, as everyone in the UTSA dugout knows, it was an equally gritty display of resilience and skill.

Working toward a baseball dream

Lorenzo Morresi didn’t get the same start in baseball that most of his teammates did. There was no travel ball, no high school ball, in Italy. There was only club ball to hone his skills.

Despite all that, he showed enough promise as a teenager to start getting feelers from college coaches in the United States.

But just as he started to flourish as a player, the Covid-19 pandemic hit. Lorenzo was in Macerata, shuttered at home with his family for about five months in 2020.

People were allowed to go out for essentials only once a day, Morresi said.

Because of the pandemic and the after-shocks felt throughout Italy, the young ball player didn’t get to start his college career in America until the 2021-22 school year at New Mexico Junior College.

Regardless, Morresi found his groove in Hobbs, N.M.. Playing for Coach Mike Robbins, he .341 as a freshman and .365 as a sophomore.

In between those seasons, he received another opportunity to improve in the form or an invitation to play internationally — for his country.

In July of 2022, he traveled to the Netherlands to play for Team Italy in the 30th edition of the Haarlem Baseball Week.

The two-week experience was a memorable one in that he played for manager Mike Piazza, whose bust can be found in Cooperstown at The Baseball Hall of Fame.

Piazza, who spent about a month in 1992 in San Antonio with the Los Angeles Dodgers-affiliated Missions, went on to star for 16 years in the majors, most prominently for the Dodgers and for the New York Mets. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2016.

At UTSA, the 5-foot-11, 180-pound Morresi is one of a growing number of Italian-born ball players taking an interest in the game. With the Roadrunners, he has played for the past two seasons, mostly at catcher.

This season has been a struggle for him in that he has been limited to 26 of UTSA’s 60 games while battling through injuries.

A sore back, in particular, had been an issue in the middle of the season. Regardless, Morresi stayed with it and did his best to remain positive.

“It’s been a tough season,” he acknowledged. “I tried to stay focused, like, (stay) up mentally and don’t lose the focus. And then, like, ‘Let’s go. Let’s go win.’ ”

After working his way back to health, Morresi gradually gained a foothold in the playing rotation recently. Though he’s made only sporadic appearances through the season, he has started in the last six games, playing a mix at catcher, designated hitter and first base.

For the season, he’s hitting a modest .287, but ever since UTSA’s second game in the American Athletic Conference tournament, one of Italy’s finest has been on the field each day for the Roadrunners, spraying the ball around and hitting .333.

Moreover, as UTSA won an NCAA regional for the first time in program history last weekend, he started at first base in all three games and, at the plate, he got himself on base six times, scoring five runs in the process.

Putting on a show

His batting average in Austin?

It was .412, on five for 12. Memorably, he went two for three with an RBI in a 10-2 victory over Kansas State. He also stole two bases to set a UTSA single-game record in NCAA postseason games.

Next, he was one for four with a run scored in a 9-7 victory over the Texas Longhorns, the second-seeded team in the NCAA tournament. Finally, he had two hits and a run scored in five at bats in a 7-4 clincher against the Longhorns.

In UTSA’s biggest test in 34 years of baseball, Morresi hit the ball hard just about every time he came to the plate How did he do it? Considering the amount of time he sat on the bench earlier in the season, how was it possible?

“It’s just part of the job,” the 23-year-old switch hitter said. “Like, I’m going to do my job. Put the ball in play. Play hard. Try to win the game. It’s part of the job. It’s nothing, like, crazy.”

Morresi said he was locked in mentally with what he had to do each day in Austin, though he did acknowledge feeling an adrenaline rush once, when he noticed all the Roadrunners and Longhorns fans in attendance at jam-packed Disch-Falk Field.

“The first inning, in the first game against the Longhorns, I was just like looking around,” he said. “And I saw so many people. And I said, ‘That’s beautiful.’ Like, I should not feel pressure. I should just enjoy it and then do my job.

“It’s like, I’m here for that.”

Morresi’s story this season is not unlike those of some of his teammates. Designated hitter Garrett Gruell didn’t play consistently during the season. Neither did Gunnar Brown. But Morresi, Gruell and Brown all figured prominently last weekend.

The depth of talent on the roster, in fact, is something that defines the Roadrunners as much as their ability to score runs and play defense.

Perhaps it’s because of the bond between players and coaches. There seems to be a certain trust factor with the coaches, even from players who aren’t on the field every day.

“There are so many people in the locker room on this ride who aren’t getting base hits or throwing pitches, but the quality of them as people is so genuine and real,” Head Coach Pat Hallmark told Sean Cartell at goutsa.com. “These kids are pretty good at baseball, and here they are sitting on the bench for us and so supportive of everything we’re doing.

“When they’re 40 years old, I’ll think of them as much as the guys doing the actual game-playing. That’s why I coach.”

Morresi said players just tend to pull together and stay engaged even if they aren’t playing regularly.

“There’s always … part of me that will say, like, I have to work hard and be ready to play, no matter what the situation,” he said. “It could happen sometimes that I don’t play. Or that somebody else don’t play. But, it is what it is. You got to be ready for everything, I would say.”

During his junior college days in New Mexico, Morresi acknowledged that he had choices when it came to deciding where to play at the next level of college baseball.

“But as soon as I got here and talked to coach Hallmark and coach (Ryan) Aguayo … I knew I wanted to be here,” he said. “I felt like I could get better here.”

As for the upcoming Super Regional against UCLA in Los Angeles this weekend, it stands as a curious twist on baseball history that Morresi will be taking his game from San Antonio to the West Coast, so to speak.

It’s the same path that Piazza, his former mentor in international ball, took when he was promoted from the Missions to play for Tommy Lasorda and the Dodgers in 1992. Morresi said he didn’t realize that Piazza played in the minors in San Antonio.

“But that is pretty cool,” he said, “that there’s a link between us.”

This week, the Roadrunners have tried to prepare as they always do, getting ready for a best-of-three series against the No. 15 national seed Bruins.

On Wednesday, they went through a three-hour practice on a hot and muggy day. They left town for the West Coast on Thursday. Morresi said the message this week from the coach to the players has been the same as usual.

“It’s like, practice hard, play hard,” he said. “Try to win every game. Every pitch. Every situation.”

The Super Regional opens on Saturday at 6 p.m. central time at Jackie Robinson Stadium on the UCLA campus. Game Two is set for 2 p.m. Sunday. A third game, if necessary, would be played Monday. The winner will earn a trip to the College World Series in Omaha, Neb.

For Morresi, some pressing questions loom. Will his parents, Valter and Nadia, need to watch on TV again, or can they make the trip? It’s possible they might make it to Los Angeles, he said Wednesday afternoon.

Also, can UTSA continue its wild ride and win two in Los Angeles … to reach Omaha?

“Our expectations are to compete and win,” Morresi said. “We cannot control winning, but, like, we are going there to win and play hard. We’re not going there just for a vacation. We’re going there because we want to go to Omaha. It’s our goal.”