It was 1962 — the year Tom Cruise, Axl Rose and the New York Mets were born — when the Rutgers baseball team last had a better start to a season than it is having this year.

The Scartlet Knights bring a 10-1 record into tonight’s series opener against Hawaii at Les Murakami Stadium.

Steve Owens, whose first season as Rutgers head coach coincided with the start of the pandemic, has rebuilt a pitching staff that lost three starters to professional baseball while developing a powerful lineup. The past four games, the Scartlet Knights have outscored opponents 48-4. On Tuesday, the Scarlet Knights hit six homers in an 18-1 rout of Wagner.

“We get a lot of production from a lot of different guys,” Owens said. “We have a balanced, pretty good attack. It’s not like we’re built with Barry Bonds in the middle of the lineup.”

The Scarlet Knights are strong up the middle. Catcher Nick Cimillo has a slash line of .500/.625/.917. He has not been charged with an error or passed ball in 11 games.

Shortstop Danny DiGeorgio is hitting .405 while committing only one error in nine starts. Last year, center fielder Ryan Lasko was named a Freshman All-American after belting 11 home runs in a Big Ten-only schedule.

Right fielder Richie Schiekofer went 10-for-18 in Rutgers’ first series. Third baseman Chris Brito has 10 RBIs in nine starts.

Located in New Brunswick, N.J., Rutgers enjoyed a crisp but mild fall semester. “We’re outside (training) the whole first semester right into December,” Owens said. “We started off Jan. 15 with our individual work, then went into team segments. You have two-and-a-half, three weeks to play a game. Most of that preparation is done inside. This year, we did get out, maybe, 10 times. We had snow once. We plowed the field and cleared it, and we were able to get outside. Even if the conditions aren’t perfect, we’re still able to get out there in bits and pieces on different days.”

After emerging from months of intrasquad workouts, it was reassuring that the pitching is strong against anybody other than a Rutgers hitter. “The pitchers are getting whacked by the hitters,” Owens said of the workouts. “And then you think you can’t pitch. I think we’ve figured out we have a pretty good hitting group, that maybe (the workouts) weren’t an indication our pitchers weren’t pretty good.”

In seven combined starts, Nathan Florence, Jared Kollar and Brian Fitzpatrick are 6-1 with a 2.74 ERA and 1.22 WHIP. They average 10.8 strikeouts per nine innings. The Scarlet Knights’ best pitcher is Dale Stanavich, the closer. In five appearances totaling six innings, Stanavich, whose fastball consistently hits the mid-90s, has not allowed a hit, walk or run. He averages 15 strikeouts per nine innings.

In 31 years of coaching, Owens has succeeded at every level. He is among the top 15 active Division I coaches with 951 victories. While the transfer portal and Major League Baseball’s smaller draft have impacted recruiting, Owens has maintained the approach of signing “projectable” position players who are tall and athletic, preferably with a multi-sport background.