Success

So another season ended yesterday, but it's never really just another season.  It is a journey that includes so much more than competing against opponents on the field.  A season is like an adventure with a group of guys who are all in it for like reasons, to have each other's backs and to succeed in reaching common goals.

This season and this team were similar to past seasons and past teams, only different.  As is the case every year, this particular group of guys have only one year together.  Eight of them graduate and move on, and next year some new players will join the core group of returning players.  This isn't anything new; it takes place every year for every team in America.

This season was filled with success.  Some people didn't expect this team to be as good as it was, due to the graduation of several of the league's top players last year.  Personally, I expected nothing but success and expected to compete for the NCAA DIII National Championship.  The fact that we were eliminated from the Mideast Regional Tournament on Friday means that we will not win the National Championship, but by no means was the season a failure.

We can measure success in many different ways.  This was a team which was among the DIII statistical leaders in several categories, such as batting average, slugging percentage, scoring, triples, earned run average, pitchers' walks per game, and strikeout to walk ratio.  But those statistics are not what made the season a success.

Several individual team members set or broke team and MIAA Conference records as well, in hitting and pitching categories, and five guys were named to the Mideast All Region teams.  But that really isn't what made this team successful.

This year's Adrian College Baseball Team won 37 games, setting a school record and giving this senior class the most wins of any class in Adrian Baseball history.  It also won it's fourth straight MIAA regular season championship and became the first ever MIAA Conference Tournament Champions.  Successful?  Yes, but not due to on the field performance.

The great success of this squad has more to do with a group of college student-athletes who cared about the team more than they cared about themselves.  They were friends and mentors, teachers and students, companions and warriors.  They put the team ahead of themselves and nurtured positive relationships with each other.  They trusted each other and knew that when they stepped on the field for practices and games they were going to help each other improve as teammates and as players.

Most importantly, they gave everything they had for each other, and expected nothing in return.  By expecting nothing in return, they were rewarded with a lifetime of brotherhood and memories.  For that reason, they were so very successful.  I congratulate them and love them!!

On to the next task

Yesterday we won the championship in the first MIAA Baseball Tournament, earning a automatic berth into the NCAA DIII Regionals next week.  In past seasons we earned the privilege to compete in the regionals by winning our regular season championship.  Though we did win the regular season title again, we had to prove it all over again on the field this week by winning the four-team, double elimination conference tournament.  We completed the job without a loss, thanks to some fantastic execution by our hitters, defensive players, and pitchers.

Congratulations to our eight seniors, who were MIAA Champions all four years here at Adrian College!!  They are the first group to do so since some Alma College players did it back in the 1950s!!

Our players know that the season does not end here; we've still got some work to do!  We advanced to the DIII College World Series in 2008, but that was a year before these seniors put on their AC uniforms.  We now must go win a Regional Tournament, most likely in Marietta, Ohio, to advance to the CWS again.

Obviously, the regional tournament will have other championship teams trying to achieve the same goal that our team has.  One of those teams is Marietta College, the defending national champions who just won their conference tournament today.  In 2011 we played them in a doubleheader in Florida and split the two games with them, losing 3-1 and winning 2-0.

What do we have to do to continue our success in the post-season?  The answer is that we need to keep executing in the batters box, on the mound, and with our gloves.  Our plan as a pitching staff has been the same all season: throw first pitch strikes, get leadoff batters out, throw to the bottom of the strike zone, and successfully manage damage control.  The pitchers know that this team's offense is going to put some runs on the scoreboard, and that always takes some pressure off of the defense and pitching.

Our team is among the DIII national leaders in some statistical categories as we prepare for the regionals.  Among those categories are slugging percentage, batting average, runs per game, triples, earned run average, walks allowed per game, and strikeout to walk ratio.  With some of those categories, the keys to success have so much to do with taking care of the little things and focusing on the task at hand.  Once we take care of the task at hand, we can focus on the next one.  One pitch at a time, on batter at a time, one inning at a time, and one game at a time.

We call that Business as Usual.

Before I finish this, I want to give a proud shout out to my Alma Mater and former team, the Saints of Siena Heights University, who won the WHAC Tournament and advanced to the semi-finals in the opening round of the NAIA National Tournament.  Congrats to Coach John Kolasinski, his staff and all the players.  In addition, continued good luck to our former AC coaches Luke Harrigan and Xander Younce, who are currently in their third game of the WVIAC Tournament.

A little perspective

Now that our regular season has ended, our preparation for the NCAA DIII Regional Tournament continues.  We lost our last two regular season games to Hope College on Tuesday by scores of 3-0 and 4-2.  Nobody likes to lose games, and certainly not two games in one day, but we have to tip our caps to Hope’s players; they out-played us.  That happens in baseball, so we continue to try and become a better team each day, just as we have all season.

The all conference team was announced yesterday and we have six players who earned all-conference, first team honors in the MIAA this year.  We had the pitcher of the year and the player of the year for the third year in a row.  Congratulations to all of the guys and to our one second team all league players.  All of them are well-deserved awards, but I know that each guy would trade personal rewards for team accomplishments!!

Today I attended a funeral in Dearborn for the father of one of my former players at Siena Heights University.  Eric attended with me, as he had gotten to know my players pretty well while he was in his last couple years of high school.  There was a work accident that led to the death of the young 57 year old man.  I never know what the best thing to say is at a time like that, so I told Ryan that I was sorry and that loved him, gave him and his wife, mom and brother big hugs.  The priest at Divine Child did a great job during the funeral.  He said that Frank lived his life, just as God intended for us to do.  He was a friend to many and a great father and husband.

An incident like that can often put things into perspective.  Some people may stress over the loss of a doubleheader, but Ryan and his loved ones have huge holes in their hearts and it is difficult, I’m sure, to fill those holes right now.  Compared to losing baseball games, well, there is no way to compare the two.

The fortunate thing for Ryan and his family is that they have lived their lives knowing that God loves them, and that Frank lived his life as a great example of what God’s love is all about.  He didn’t necessarily verbalize his faith; he lived it.  Ryan’s family will gain in strength because of Frank’s love for them and his faith in the Lord.  Frank shared his faith with all family and friends that he encountered, and he did it completely.

So as far as the Regional Tournament is concerned, if we are to compete, then we must compete completely.  God put us on this earth with other people for a reason.  He didn’t put us here by ourselves.  He gave each of us unique gifts, gifts that are to be shared with others.  Our players can hopefully compete with each other and for each other, sacrificing ego for the good of their teammates, playing for their teammates rather than themselves.

My players don’t know Ryan or Frank, but I want to thank Frank for sharing Ryan with me for a few years, and thank Ryan for giving everything he had for his teammates for four years.  Victories on the field may not be able to be taken away, but the selflessness of teammates carries over for generations, always to be warmly felt and remembered.

Senior Day, last regular season games

Tomorrow the Adrian College Baseball Team plays its last two conference/regular season games with a home doubleheader against Hope College.  We just completed our four game series against Kalamazoo College by winning the last three games following an opening game loss.  Though our sixteen game winning streak ended on Friday, it was good for the team to be battle tested again.  I'm certain that tomorrow's games against Hope will also provide us with great competition that will help in preparation for next week's NCAA Regional Tournament.

During our winning streak, I didn't change anything about our practices for the pitchers.  Perhaps it was superstition (like shaving, or not shaving on game day!).  Today, though, I felt like I needed to make a couple changes to our practice.  We did our 'flat ground' work in the bullpens from the slope of the mound.  We really threw short bullpens today rather than flat ground.  I thought the location of some of our pitches took a step backwards last week, which caused us to fall behind more batters and put us in hitter's counts rather than pitcher's counts.

The other change was that we added a new conditioning drill for our pitchers.  It was a drill that Eric and I talked about (and Eric diagrammed) Friday night at home, with pitchers starting on the mound and sprinting to ten different locations, and sprinting back to the mound from each location.  The locations were various spots around the infield that pitchers may have to go to during a play, while either backing up bases or covering bases.  The drill took each pair of pitchers just a bit over three minutes.  It was different than our normal conditioning for the day before a doubleheader, but sometimes different is good, and it is a drill we will use again in the future.

The weekend series against Kalamazoo was highlighted by Senior Day at home on Saturday.  This year's senior class has accumulated more wins than any class in the history of Adrian College baseball, and they have a lot to be proud of.  Not only have they set a new standard of excellence, but the class is filled with guys who have exhibited a great amount of positive leadership to go along with their success.  It has been a privilege for me to be able to work with all ten of the seniors, and our work is not yet complete!!

Hopefully, our underclassmen will take a page from the 2011 Senior Class's book, by continuing to lead their teammates with unselfishness and a dedication to improving every day.  The work ethic and positive attitudes of these seniors will provide each of them with a solid foundation for the rest of their lives!!

Bittersweet weekend....time to eat an elephant

The weekend is over and spring has arrived, we have played nine non-conference games, and now it is time to prepare for a 28 game conference schedule.

As for the weekend, it was bittersweet.  After beating the nation's top ranked Heidelberg College team in a 2-1, ten inning game yesterday, Heidelberg turned the tables on us today and won another ten inning game by the same 2-1 score.  One could say that the weekend was a success, but it didn't necessarily feel that way when the last out was made in today's tenth inning.

When a team comes so close to knocking off the top ranked team in two consecutive games, only to lose the second one, it might be natural to feel a little deflated.  The way I generally try to look at things is that it is now time to prepare for the next game.  A team is only as good as its next game.  Our last game is over and has been entered into the history books, but if we indeed achieve one of our often stated goals of trying to improve every day, we have to take a look at these two games, evaluate our performance, and look for ways to improve.

We did some things very well this weekend.  As in our last two games (two weeks ago in Florida against Marietta College), we pitched well and played great defense.  In two games (20 innings) against Heidelberg we gave up a total of three runs, one of which was earned.  As for that earned run, it was scored when a fly ball to deep left-center was caught by left fielder Kyle Strawn and the runner on second base advanced to third and home.  It was a very good defensive play by Strawn and an outstanding hustle play by the Heidelberg runner to score all the way from second base (an extremely rare occurrence) .

So we can say that we did a pretty good job pitching, but it was a little more difficult to pitch all those shutout innings than it was against Marietta two weeks ago.  Against Marietta we retired the leadoff batter in 15 of the 17 innings we played.  Anytime you get the first batter out, there is a lot less pressure on the pitcher and defense.  We walked more Heidelberg batters (this weekend we walked 14 batters in 20 innings) than we did Marietta batters (4 walks in 17 innings) and thus had to make more stressful pitches this weekend.

What we did a very good job of, partly due to allowing more freebies, was maintaining damage control.  It is an important part of pitching that the pitchers and I often talk about.  One of the reasons we were able to prevent Heidelberg from scoring when they had runners on base so often was that we did a great job of getting strikeouts and pop outs with runners on base.  Runners don't advance on strikeouts and pop outs; thus we successfully pitched and played great defense in crucial situations and kept the Student Princes from scoring.....in other words, our damage control was pretty good.

What can we do better?  As a pitching staff, we need to do a better job of allowing the hitters to get themselves out and thus make it easier on us.  By allowing freebies and pitching so often with runners on base, we are forced to throw more pitches than we would like to throw.  Therefore, efficiency is probably the most important thing our pitching staff has to improve on as we prepare for our first conference games.

We all know that we also need to score more runs, and I am confident that will come with time as our hitters face game pitching more consistently (remember, we had gone two weeks without playing a game).  We do have to tip our caps to the pitchers Heidelberg threw at us this weekend, just as we had to give Marietta's pitchers credit for keeping the games low scoring.  As we play our MIAA conference games, I'm sure our batting averages and situational hitting will gradually improve, and soon we will put up some good offensive numbers.....it happens every year!!

And now that spring is here, we hope to have warmer weather on a more consistent basis.  That is another thing that can help any team score more runs!

MIAA conference games begin for us Friday when we play two home games against Calvin College.  Saturday we will travel to Calvin for two more games.  In the last two seasons, we have won 48 conference games and lost only eight in earning the MIAA Championship both years.  Our goal is to win every conference game that we play, but just one at a time.  The regular season MIAA Champion earns an automatic berth into the NCAA Division III Regionals, which is the first step in earning a trip to the DIII World Series in Appleton, Wisconsin.

The path to the World Series is like eating an elephant, which one can only do one bite at a time.  We have taken a few small bites already; now it is time to put on the bib and get to work on the main part of that elephant.  Personally, I am proud of our entire Adrian College team; they have played well enough to know for sure that they are one of the country's best DIII baseball teams!!

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??