by Mike Connors
Height doesn’t measure heart. That’s the motto for 5’6 Cortland sophomore Marcos Perivolaris.
The saying “HDMH” was made famous by Pat-Med grad and Blue Jays star pitcher, Marcus Stroman. For Perivolaris, he lives by this motto not only on the field, but off the field as well.
“It’s not about your physical appearance–it’s about your drive, work ethic, and your ability to compete,” says Perivolaris.
The reason Cortland is such a great fit for Marcos is because everyone around him, including head coach Joe Brown, knows that your height doesn’t matter as long as you have the heart. You have to make up for your height in certain ways, and the ability to compete is just one of many. Ever since Perivolaris was young, Marcus Stroman has always been a role model to him. Marcos has trained at Infiniti Sports Performance since he was young, he used to get lessons with Neal Heaton–two staples of Stroman’s road to success.
The reason Stroman is a huge role model to Perivolaris today, is because he’s “always used HDMH as a motto to strive for greater things and light a fire inside of me.” The approach Stroman takes every time he steps onto the field is very similar to the style of play Perivolaris has–in which they both constantly play with a chip on their shoulder. Perivolaris uses Stroman as a source of motivation because Stroman was able to achieve his dreams, and because they relate in so many ways.
Perivolaris knows he can do the same with the amount of heart and passion he puts into the game. Throughout his high school career, Perivolaris helped lead Mattituck to three Long Island Championships and one NYS title. Although he was fortunate enough to complete his high school career with three rings, nothing has ever come easy for him within the course of his young career.
Perhaps the most devastating setback of Perivolaris’ career came this past summer. In the last game of his summer season, Perivolaris suffered a broken and dislocated his ankle while sliding into second base. After the injury occurred, most doctors told him that he might have to sit out his sophmore season. He wasn’t able to put any weight on his foot for three months. All of these factors were only motivation for Perivolaris. Over the course of the past five months since the injury, he’s been attending physical therapy five days per week and doing everything he can to try and be ready by the start of the season.
His training includes about five hours a day, which is basically a full-time job. But according to Perivolaris, “I love this game and my team so much, it’s all worth putting in the time to do what I love.” Because of the constant effort he put into his training in the past five months, Perivolaris will be attending the teams first practice ready to go for the upcoming season. In his freshman year, Perivolaris was fortunate enough to play in 33 games and start in 9 of them, two of those starts coming in the College World Series.
The Red Dragons came in third in the College World Series, just one year after winning the Div-III National Championship. He noted that the team has an insatiable desire to not just beat–but bludgeon their opponent.
“We want to run-rule every team and put up 50 runs.” While that goal may be rather far-fetched they did score double digit runs 15 times and eclipsed 20 runs on two occasions.
Ever since 8th grade, when Marcos played on the Mattituck varsity team, he has always been apart of winning teams–and has three rings to show for it. Because of his championship mentality, Perivolaris and the rest of the Cortland team feel that coming in third place in the nation last year was a failure. Their mindset is to win it all and nothing less. Perivolaris will definitely be a player to watch this year in the SUNYAC, and it will be interesting to see how Cortland performs as they are on a mission to regain the title of national champs.
