A new season brings hope and excitement to a program and a fanbase alike. This past weekend, the Bluejays baseball team kicked off its season as the athletes traveled for a series with the North Carolina Greensboro Spartans.
The weekend kicked off with a doubleheader on Friday but began with disappointment for the Jays, dropping both games. They lost the first matchup 5-3 and followed that up with a 3-0 loss later that day. The Bluejays were able to recover, however, collecting a dominating 17-1 victory with 17 hits on Sunday.
“Like a lot of opening series, we learned that we have a lot of things to work on,” Head Coach Ed Servais said. “When you practice on a daily basis and scrimmage against each other…you don’t really know what you have until you play against some outside competition. The good news is that we improved a lot on Sunday. … A lot of the things that we did wrong on Friday, we improved on Sunday…so we are hoping that we continue to see improvement again next weekend.”
The Bluejays are looking to recover from last season, when they were left out of postseason play. They did not qualify for the Big East tournament or the NCAA tournament despite holding a 35-17 record and not dropping a single midweek game.
This year, hopes are much higher for the Bluejays, picked to finish fourth in the Big East.Three players were named to the Big East Preseason Team: infielder Kyle Hess, outfielder Nolan Sailors and right-handed pitcher Dominic Cancellieri.
“We have a lot of veteran players that have played a lot of baseball at this level, so that is encouraging,” Servais said. “I think we have a lot more pitching depth. I think we’ve got some young pitchers that still have to kind of figure it out a little bit, but I’m optimistic that within the next couple of weeks, they will settle down a little bit and show that we have [a lot of] options on the mound.”
After posting a 28-4 record in nonconference play last season, the Bluejays were looking to begin with a strong showing in the doubleheader on opening day. Both teams were able to get off to a fast start in the first game. The Spartans scored three runs in the first inning, coming off of an RBI double and a two RBI single.
The Bluejays responded quickly to this, with three runs of their own coming in the second inning off of a pair of base hits. The high scoring would continue for the remainder of the second inning, as the Spartans hit a two-run home run in the bottom of the inning to gain a 5-3 advantage. Defense and pitching were the story for the rest of this game, as neither team was able to score again. The Spartans took game one of the series 5-3.
The second game saw much less scoring. Neither team was able to punch across a run for the first four innings. This changed in the bottom of the fifth inning, as the Spartans scored three runs, coming in a variety of ways.This would be the only time either team was able to get on the board, as the Spartans won 3-0.
The Bluejay’s fortunes changed in the third game of the series on Sunday. The scoring began with a two-run home run from junior infielder Ben North for the Bluejays. Senior outfielder Will Maclean followed up with a two-run home run of his own to give the Bluejays a 4-0 lead in the third inning. The Bluejays extended their lead further with a four-run fifth inning to grow their lead to 8-0. Two of these runs came on an error by the Spartans on a fielder’s choice play.
The lead only continued to grow, with two more runs coming for the Bluejays. One of these was on an RBI single fromSailors and the second run came courtesy of a hit by pitch. A wild seventh inning continued the scoring for the Bluejays. They scored seven runs in the inning off five base hits, a fielder’s choice and a wild pitch. The Spartans answered with an RBI single in the bottom of the inning. This was not enough, as the game came to an early end, with the Bluejays winning by a score of 17-1 to bring the mercy rule into effect.
“[The third game] was completely different,” Servais said. “We played with a lead for the first time all weekend, and when you play with a lead, I think you respond differently. You settle in a little bit more and are able to control the strike zone. …We got a lot of runs that took the pressure off of the pitching and defense, and [overall] they were just more relaxed.”
Despite dropping two out of the three games in the series, the Bluejays showed a lot of potential on the defensive side. Throughout the whole series, the Bluejays gave up a run in only four innings.
“When we were throwing strikes, our pitching was very good,” Servais said. “For the most part, wedidn’t give up very many hits, giving up only twelve for the whole weekend. That is outstanding, so I am hoping that our pitchers realize that their pitches are good enough to throw over the plate and not give up very many hits.”
The Bluejays will hit the road again next weekend, traveling to Portland, Oregon for a four-game series with the University of Portland. The series will begin with a 5 p.m. Friday night.