Baseball on Easter Sunday

Eighteen games into the MIAA schedule we are now 17-1, with ten games left to play.  Half of our four game series against Hope College was postponed due to Friday's weather, and those games will be made up on May 10th.  Though I was hoping we would play last Friday, now we will be able to use six different starting pitchers during that last week (Friday, Saturday, Tuesday) and thus have some more of our pitchers prepared for the Regional Tournament.

Though we still can't count our chickens before they hatch and we can't take a Regional appearance for granted, our practice of believing in ourselves gives us the opportunity to visualize the regionals already.  Our closest competitor in the loss column is Kalamazoo College at 9-7, and the next best team in the win column is Calvin College at 12-8.  We play our Kalamazoo series in two weeks, and we have already played Calvin.

Early in the season, or actually in the pre-season, I had the pitchers use visualization while we practiced inside.  For the returning players, I told them to envision being on the mound at Marietta College's field.  That is where the Mideast Regional tournament was last year and again next month that will be the site.  All of the players who played last season in that tournament are able to visualize themselves being successful on Marietta's field, and that can only help us when we get there.

Again though, we still have to take care of business in our last ten games.  Yesterday we swept Hope, with Ryan Domschot throwing another shutout in game #1, which gives our pitching staff eight shutouts in our 18 conference games, and seven shutouts in our last twelve games.  That is an indicator that we are continuing to improve, but we have to keep reminding our guys that no matter how well we have been playing, there are still mistakes made that we can learn from and thus make ourselves a better team.

The luxury that a team has when it is playing well is that in trying to improve on weaknesses, or mistakes, it is easier to pick out those mistakes after games because there aren't as many of them as in a poorly played game.  In providing feedback after a bad game, there are often so many mistakes to try to hash out and then some of them can unfortunately be overlooked.  After well played games, we can look at the mistakes we made and spend some time in dialogue as well as in practice to try to take care of those situations more effectively in the future.

Yesterday our hitters did a great job of giving us a lead early in each game.  They executed great in all situations and hit a few long balls for good measure.  Though the homers by Brian Bilius and Nate Sarkissian were great, special props go to senior Nate Clark for absolutely crushing his first career homerun!

Today was a fantastic Easter Sunday.  I was able to watch some baseball on tv with my kids, cook a roast along with potatoes and veggies for us, watch a movie, and nap on the couch.  These kind of days don't happen as much as I would like anymore!!  I'm grateful for the sacrifice that Jesus made for us, and for being able to share this day with both of my kids!!

Go Adrian College Bulldogs!!

What more could a coaching staff want?

A few hours ago we arrived back at Adrian College after a 22 hour bus ride.  Though it's nice being home, after playing baseball in sunny, 80 degree weather, the snow on the ground here isn't what we ever hope to see upon returning for the baseball season.  The weather is out of our control though, and now we have to continue to prepare for our next games and our conference schedule.

Our last day in Florida was yesterday.  We had already played and won two games there on Wednesday and Thursday.  After using Friday as a practice day and playing a JV game, we played two nine inning games against NCAA DIII #8 ranked Marietta College.  We are familiar with them, since we seem to see them every May in the Mideast Regional Tournament.

Originally we were only scheduled to play Marietta one game on Saturday, but since we had a game rained out earlier in the week in Georgia, we had room on our schedule to add the second game with Marietta.  It almost didn't happen!  I was personally hoping we would get to play them twice, as the opportunity to play against teams that are currently and traditionally strong helps us to improve, regardless of the outcome.  I think that as a result of playing yesterday's doubleheader, we are not only a better team than we were the day before, but we also have a team full of players who believe we are better than they believed the previous day. What else could a coaching staff want??

Yesterday's doubleheader with Marietta was a quick one in comparison to a lot of college doubleheaders.  We finished two nine inning games in four hours, losing the first game 3-1 and winning the second game 2-0.  The two games were full of great pitching and defense, as the scores would indicate.  Game one was scoreless until the fifth inning, when Marietta scored two runs, one of which was earned.  The rbi single that Marietta shortstop Tim Saunders hit was on an 0 and 2 pitch, and the second run scored when our centerfielder's throw hit the baserunner sliding into third and bounced away.  The throw was a good throw and just took an unfortunate bounce off the runner's body.  Saunders deserves credit for making good contact on a pretty good pitch.

Marietta scored again in the sixth on a ground ball to our second baseman with a runners on second and third.  We considered bringing the infield in to prevent the run from scoring on a ground ball, but kept the middle infielders back to avoid giving up two possible runs on a blooper over their heads.  Therefore we were down 3-0.

Ryan Domschot again pitched a great game for us, going the distance, striking out ten batters and allowing only six hits and two walks.  Unfortunately for us, Marietta's pitcher Mark Williams was outstanding as well, pitching 8 1/3 innings, allowing only five hits and also striking out ten batters.  The run we finally scored off of him in the ninth inning was an unearned run.

The second game featured another pitcher's duel.  Marietta's Austin Blaski pitched a complete game, allowing only six hits and three walks while striking out seven batters.  Our sophomore shortstop Cody Meyer scored both of our runs, one in the first inning after he walked, advanced to second on a bunt, third on a hit by Brian Bilius, and then scoring on a wild pitch.  He scored our only other run in the fifth inning, after he tripled and then scored on a ground ball by Andrew DeLuca.  Cody was hit in the back of the head in the seventh inning and had to leave the game.  He was up in a situation with a runner on second, two outs and first base open and he had done all the damage almost by himself already.  By hitting him and putting a runner on first base it set up an easier force opportunity for Marietta's defense, who got the third out on the next pitch.

We heard a comment from the fan section about us getting back at them for hitting Cody, as he had to leave the game and go to the Emergency Room (fortunately he is doing great!), but with a 2-0 score we couldn't afford to intentionally throw at a batter and put a potential run on base.

The game ended, fittingly, with a routine ground ball to Mike Herzog (who replaced Meyer in the lineup) at shortstop.  I had just made my only trip to the mound when the last batter was coming up.  Our winning pitcher, senior Dave Partyka, was pretty excited at that moment, with a shutout and the game on the line.  His heart rate was a little higher than it had been the previous eight innings.  He had gotten two outs in the inning and allowed a hit and then hit the shirt sleeve of their cleanup hitter to put runners on second and third.  We had two guys warming up in the bullpen at the time, but the game was Dave's game to finish.  During my trip, I told him that he was in charge of the game from the beginning, was still in control of it, and that he would be to the end.  Dave proceeded to get ahead of the hitter and induce him to hit the easy ground ball to finish the game.

Having two pitchers throw complete games in the same day is pretty rare, especially when we are playing a nationally ranked team in nine inning games.  Domschot and Partyka both did such a great job of throwing their fastball where they wanted to and got ahead of a lot of hitters.  They both deserved victories; but so did the pitchers for Marietta.  It was a great day of college baseball for both teams.

I think that ultimately, what that doubleheader (thankfully we added that second game to the schedule) did was enhance the confidence level of our players and of course, the team.  They experienced two tight games against one of the top ten teams in the country, and succeeded in winning one of the two games.  We can say that we could have won both games, but Marietta could say the same thing.  A couple of balls being hit a few feet either way could have made the outcomes of each game different.

After a nice trip and some success in close games, we are now preparing for our next games (on March 19th and 20th) against #1 ranked Heidelberg College and then the beginning of the MIAA Conference schedule.  Again, what more could a coaching staff want??