Lauren Campbell
Equinox Staff
The KSC baseball and softball teams are ready to knock one out of the park during the openings of the 2012 baseball and softball seasons.
The teams are working hard at perfecting their game in hopes of making the playoffs and potentially the World Series and NCAA tournament.
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For the baseball team with 40 percent of its players being underclassmen, they are certainly proving themselves.
“Well, we’ve come accustom to being pretty good lately, we expect to be good. We really need to look at it one game at a time. I know it’s an old cliché, but realistically it’s a 40 game marathon as opposed to you know a game at a time streak. That’s what we’re kind of looking for right now,” Head Coach Ken Howe said.
“It’s funny, we’re old and we’re young. We’re very old on the mound this year and we’re young pretty much everywhere else it’s good. They’re a good bunch of kids. They’ve been taken under their wing pretty well by the upperclassmen as usual,” Howe said.
Although the team lost its first game on Friday, March 2 to Farmingdale State, it made up for it by winning the second game and defeating MIT 6-2 and winning its third game vs. St. Joseph’s College 8-4.
“I mean we always have the goal of making the Little East Tournament, that’s the first goal. Winning the Little East Tournament to get to the NCAA’s, and you know we’ve been there three out of the last five years and we want to go back. We want to go further in the tournament than we have. We’d love to go to Appleton, Wis. and make way to the college division World Series,” Howe said.
KSC junior and third basemen Greg Bates agreed with Howe’s perception of the team’s goal.
“As a whole every year is to get to that World Series. But we’ll start with getting to the LEC championships and winning the conference championships and take it from there. Hopefully we’ll get to that World Series,” Bates said.
The goal for KSC softball Coach Charlie Beach is to win it all. “The expectations are always the same. We’re going to win the Little East Conference, and go to the NCAA’s and win the NCAA Regional Tournament,” Beach said.
“It’s just a very strong team. But we play in a very difficult conference. Last year we lost 12 games, seven were in this conference. We lost four in Florida and we lost one to Williams. All the other losses were in this conference. Three of the members in this conference went to the NCAA Regionals. One was the winner of the LEC Tournament and two of those teams ended up at the same regional playing in what is known as a necessary game, which is the final game of the tournament because they eliminate everybody else. Of course one eliminated the other so each team got to go to the NCAA’s,” Beach said.
This year’s baseball team is challenging itself. One strategy for the team is going to be using those key freshmen players.
“I think they’re all going to get a pretty good opportunity to prove themselves throughout the first 13 games of the year, which is nice. Then it’s going to depend on who’s producing. Again if you look at our roster we’re very young on the field and very old on the mound. It takes both of those things to win,” Howe said.
Freshmen player Tyler Estevez said he is happy just to get some playing time.
“There’s a lot of seniors on the team, so I’m just trying to get better and stronger. Hopefully I can play a little bit this year keep getting more playing time as the years go on,” Estevez said. According to Beach, there are a few key players he has in mind.
“I graduated none. I have eight seniors. Those seniors have won more games than any other class in the history of the program. I also have six freshmen who are very talented people who are going to come in, and supplement an already very successful bunch of players,“ Beach said.
“The key players are the eight seniors. Laura Chandler, Haley Chandler twins, all conference players, Nicole Dupuis and junior who’s a swing player plays catcher and third base, the pitching staff of Emily Albin, Sarah Stocklinski, and Sam Pratt. Sam Pratt has led the nation in saves for the last two consecutive years. We have a freshman pitcher who is very impressive in practice-Julia Nolan,” Beach said.
Beach continued, “Katie Bradford is coming back from back surgery from last year, she hasn’t played very much at all. You can’t leave out Kayla Joyce who is an all conference outfielder.”
The baseball team is headed for a busy weekend with two doubleheaders on both March 9 and March 10 vs. Aurora and Husson in sunny Winter Haven, Fla.
The softball team starts its season on Monday, March 11 in Clermont, Fla. playing three consecutive double headers on March 11, 12, and 13.
Lauren Campbell can be contacted at lcampbell@ksc.mailcruiser.com
