The UCF import on the Commodore roster runs deep.

Sachem Ramos. Kaniel Rosado. Wyatt Dion.

And behind the dish for them all? Dallas Brooks.

Summer baseball is a unique setting for these guys because it provides a unique environment fit for growth. It provides the grounds for pitcher and catcher to strengthen the connection of their battery to return to school as a more cohesive duo.

In a world where the transfer portal is placing stronger limits than ever on a program’s ability to retain its best talent, the experience that summer baseball provides – and specifically the Cape League – proves invaluable for pitchers to learn how to work with the catchers that they’ll throw to in the following spring. Especially when head coach Jack Dahm forces them to communicate.

“Here we're calling our own pitches versus at school where it's just the coaches calling the pitches,” said Brooks. “We're talking a lot more pre-game and [I’m trying to] find what's really working for them.”

The chips fell into the right places for these UCF talents to have that experience this summer, and it's paid dividends thus far.

Sachem Ramos | Senior

Ramos came to the Cape with purpose.

After spending a pair of years at Florida Southern to refine his arsenal, he joins a Knights roster that saw its pitching staff crumble in the early portion of the NCAA Tournament this upcoming fall. Getting to learn how to work with one of their most important returners behind the dish was critical.

Brooks’ first impression of the power arm was strong.

“He had a really good presence,” he said. “He went about it the right way. He was very confident in his stuff.”

Ramos peppered the zone in his five appearances for Falmouth and it paid off, tossing to a 1.46 ERA and punching out 11 in 12.1 innings.

“He had a really good summer and I think going to school in the fall with the same mentality he has and the same confidence he has, he'll do just fine.”

High praise from Brooks to a guy who’s trying to re-establish himself at the D-I level.

Ramos had been in limbo after a down freshman year with Michigan, spending that summer with the North Shore Navigators of the NECBL to begin his long journey back before arriving at Florida Southern for his two-year stint. But if there’s anything this summer has taught Brooks and his coaching staff at UCF, it's that he’s got unshakeable confidence that makes him fit for the pressure the highest level of baseball brings.

“He likes the pressure and you can never have enough of those guys,” Brooks said. “[In] tight ball games and towards the end of the year, you need guys that are going to go out there and you know that they're confident. They're not going to fold under that pressure.”

If Brooks’ intuition is right, UCF is getting an arm that could be a lifeline for its national title aspirations.

Kaniel Rosado | Sophomore

For a young arm like Rosado – the youngest on the Commodore roster – Brooks’ experience behind the dish proves integral for growth. He knows that, and the first step in weaponizing that experience is putting him in a place where he can believe in his arsenal – the arsenal that brought him to a Big 12 program. “​​I try to make sure that he feels comfortable with all of his pitches,” Brooks said. “He's got really good stuff and I think he got a lot of good experience this past year at school.”

Brooks’ experience after his first season at UCF puts him in an advantageous position to call the pitches he knows works best for each individual guy. “ I let him do his thing behind home plate, and he always gives me the best feedback when I'm wrong or when I'm right,” Rosado said.

Once that confidence is established, the poise follows. As a late-game reliever, Rosado has grown to become one of Dahm’s most relied upon pitchers as he’s got more innings under his belt.

“I've seen him grow a lot already with the more innings he's pitched and the higher spots he's pitched in,” said Brooks. “Seeing him be more calm each outing has been a really good feeling…I think he’s constantly getting better at that.”

That type of confidence in Brooks and in his own ability helps build the pitcher-to-catcher connection they’ll need before heading back to UCF. “When we get back to school, we're family, so we keep building that strong connection here…we learned a lot over here, so [we] take that back and tell our coaches how we felt and the feedback we've got with her outings.”

The end goal for Rosado, in Brooks’ eyes, lies in the construction of emotional maturity, a process which has been accelerated by the plethora of talent on Cape Cod that has brought him some of the toughest challenges of his young college career. According to him, “continuing to face these top guys, going into next year is going to be a big confidence builder” heading into his sophomore season. He seems on the road to mastery as the season comes to a close.

“He's got kind of like a presence out there,” his catcher said of him. “No matter the count, you can tell he'll be able to throw any pitch at any time.”

Wyatt Dion | Sophomore

For Dion and Brooks, the communication is just as seamless and the feedback seems free-flowing between the two at times. “[If] I'm doing something wrong, he knows it too,” said Dion. “He'll tell me. If I don't know what's wrong, I'll go up to him, ask him, and he'll give me instant feedback.”

Most of that stems from Brooks’ ability to parallel the summer baseball environment to that of a conference season at UCF. Particularly, in giving his pitchers opportunities to execute specific pitches in similar fashion to how they would for the Knights.

“He knows what our pitching coach would call in certain situations and he knows how our pitches move, so he'll do the same thing as our pitching coach would in the summer league [to make sure we] keep battling.”

Particularly for Dion, high heat has been the specific pitch he’s honed in on executing on Cape and he worked it to perfection against Hyannis in game 39 of the season, large in part due to a jump in velocity.

“So during school ball, I had a problem with my velo,” said Dion. “I've just been working on landing with the front leg and [being] explosive…[I’ve gotten] my velo up and started throwing harder.”

Dion’s fastball is its most electric at the top of the zone and if his last regular season outing was any indication of his growth, UCF should be excited to get him back this fall.