Today is the beginning

Okay, today is graduation day for our ten seniors.  Hopefully they will enjoy this day with their families, friends and teammates as it signifies the beginning of the rest of their lives.  Fortunately though, they don't have to leave campus yet, as they still have some business to take care of.

We clinched the MIAA championship on Friday by beating Albion College twice at their field in two one run games.  We had already beaten them twice at home on Thursday.  Now there is certainty in the numbers; we have officially earned a trip to the NCAA DIII Regionals. We still have six conference games remaining to continue to improve as individual players, as coaches, and as a team.  The regional tournament isn't going to be something that we can win without getting better than we already are, so these last six games should be played with the idea that we are preparing for success in the regional tournament.

One of the best things about the way we won the two games at Albion is that we had to execute late in each game to earn the wins.  In game one we fell behind 3-0 in the second inning, but we held them scoreless through the 7th inning as we battled and tied the game before winning it in an extra inning.  Mike Herzog was the offensive hero with huge rbi hits scattered throughout the game, and Rylie Robinson kept putting up zeroes in Albion's half of each inning.  I thought that our mvp in this team victory was catcher Joe Dubina, who blocked several breaking balls in the dirt to prevent baserunners from advancing in almost every inning.  As always, Joe saved us some runs!!

Game two was a quick game, as Josh Burd threw only 60 pitches in the first six innings and Jake Cappelletty had two rbis, including a solo home run (did he get that home run ball yet?) to get us into the bottom of the 7th with a 2-0 lead.  The bottom of the 7th began with Albion hitting a double, reaching on an error, and hitting another double off of Burd to put the tying run on third and the potential winning (walk-off) run on second base with nobody out.  Fortunately we had Lucas Willitzer ready to come into the game from the bullpen, even though Burd had easily cruised through those first six innings.

Coming out of the bullpen with the game on the line, runners on base, and nobody out is not an easy thing for a pitcher to do.  We haven't had many situations like this in recent weeks, so this was a good game situation for our guys to try to deal with.  Lucas has a great arm, and we have been real cautious with it during the season.  We found out that he has the ability (and more importantly the attitude) to close out a game in such a circumstance.  He got the first guy on a routine ground ball to third, and then basically blew fastballs by the next two guys for two strikeouts to clinch the game and the conference title.  Winning the game in that manner made the victory so much better for our team than if it wasn't such a nail-biter

After today's graduation, our guys can prepare each day for the trip to the Regionals in a couple weeks.  It is an opportunity to finish strong in the conference season and sweat the small stuff at practices each day, so that we are confident and proficient in all aspects of the game when that regional tournament begins.

Today is the beginning, but it isn't the beginning of the end.  It is the beginning of a few weeks to continue playing and acting like champions, of several days of looking and believing like champions do. Today we can celebrate the academic achievements of the seniors, and tomorrow those seniors can lead us to complete the goals we set before the season started.

"I believe in the promised land."  Bruce Springsteen

Business as Usual

A lot has happened in the almost two weeks since we played Heidelberg College, unfortunately most of what was happening had to do with Mother Nature trying to prolong winter here in the Great Lakes Region.  Our MIAA conference openers last Friday were postponed due to cold temperatures and rescheduled for May.  But when we got to practice Monday we were informed that we would play our four game series against Calvin College on Tuesday and Wednesday.  Therefore, we (and Calvin) now faced the prospect of playing four conference doubleheaders in the next five days.

As soon as Coach Rainey told me the news of the week's schedule, I genuinely painted a positive picture of the opportunity that it presented for our pitching staff.  Then I was able to meet the pitchers in the left field corner and tell them the great news.  This was going to be an opportunity to prove to ourselves that we have a very deep and talented pitching staff.  Our conference format of 28 games over seven weeks, facing one conference opponent each week (a doubleheader at our place and a doubleheader on the road), puts us in a position of using our top four pitchers in those games.  Because the games are seven innings (rather than nine innings), if our pitchers are efficient in their starts we don't need to use our bullpen very often.

As I presented the scenario to our pitching staff on Monday, it was clear that I was excited.  I have been saying for the past few years that our schedule has not prepared us as well as possible for our Regional Tournament and DIII World Series, tournaments in which we play nine inning games.  We are forced to use the bullpen more in the post-season, and thus we use some guys who haven't pitched much in legitimate pressure situations.  Sure, they have pitched some quality innings, but nothing like the kind of innings we play against great teams in the post-season.  So I told the pitchers that this week we would probably use six or eight starting pitchers and that would be a good thing for us, for the reasons already mentioned above.

What has happened so far is working out to be exactly the way I thought it would.  We have played our first six of the week's eight games, and have won all six.  On Tuesday we used our staff aces, Ryan Domschot and DavePartyka, our only two senior pitchers.  They were their usual dominant selves, as we won by scores of 3-2 and 4-2.  Again, our defense was also outstanding.  We struck out 19 batters in the 14 innings and gave up only eight hits.  As I predicted in my previous blog post, our hitters started to make strides as well, and this was only the beginning of the offense getting back to being fat (in a great way)!!

On Wednesday we went to Calvin and beat them twice again, with Jason Fryman throwing a complete game on only 67 pitches in the opener and Josh Burd, getting his first start, going the first five innings in game two.  Freshman Mike Osterman made his first varsity appearance and pitched the last two innings, allowing only one hit.  During the wins by scores of 6-2 and 9-1, the offense continued to improve and our pitchers allowed no walks in 14 innings.

Yesterday we began our four game series against Trine, playing at home.  Game one was started by sophomore Zach Robbins, who had some shoulder tenderness after our southern trip.  He was perfect through four innings, and then walked two guys and hit one in the fifth.  We decided to take him out after five, even though he had a no-hitter going.  Sean Hartman pitched the last two innings and did not allow a run as we won 6-0.  Freshman Rylie Robinson started game two, and after throwing five innings of 2-hit baseball we took him out so that Brent Greenwood and Craig Steadman could shut down the opposition in the sixth and seventh innings for a 5-0 win.  For the day we threw 14 innings and again with great defense, did not allow a run and gave up only five hits.

I had told the pitchers that if we ever threw two shutouts in one day they would be treated to some batting practice, so at today's practice they will get to take some swings.  Hopefully we can limit them to only a handful of swings each, and then we can be prepared for tomorrow's doubleheader at Trine and continue with  business as usual.

Tomorrow, Head Coach Craig Rainey will be going for his 400th victory at Adrian College.  If we play up to our expectations, he will also get victory #401 and we will be off to a good start to the 2011 MIAA season!  I'm sure he is more focused on getting one victory at a time tomorrow rather than reaching a milestone like 400, as are we, but it is always special to be able to congratulate a friend for such an accomplishment!!