By Skye Tulio
Assistant Sports Editor
The baseball team returned home Monday night from its spring training campaign in Winter Haven, Fla. with a 5-5 record. TheBonnies were 5-2 before losing their last three games.
The Brown and White travel to Beckley, W.Va. March 16-18 for their first road series of the year against Marshall. The first two games of the weekend series begin at 4 p.m. with the Sunday finale at 2 p.m.
Last season, the Bonnies went 1-3 against Marshall, winning their final game against the Herd, 9-2.
“Marshall’s pretty darn good,” coach Larry Sudbrook said. “They had 11 guys drafted last year; they play with Rice in Conference USA, and that’s very good baseball..We’ll be really challenged down there. If we win one out of three from them again, that won’t be a bad weekend.”
Last year, the Bonnies began the regular season 3-6, and although this year’s record is an improvementSudbrook said the number is still disappointing.
“I think when you’re 5-2 and your starting pitching has been pretty good and you’re swinging the bat, you’re certainly thinking you’re going to get out of there 7-3, 6-4,” Sudbrook said. “I can’t say we’re pleased with 5- 5; I think we should have done better.”
The Bonnies dropped their first game of the season Feb.24, falling to Western Michigan, 6-4, but won the two remaining games in the series against the Broncos.
The team then took three wins in a four-game series against Mount St. Mary’s, ending the trip with three straight losses-two against Georgetown and one in the last game against Northeastern.
“We lost a couple games at the end that I was disappointed in, but it really wasn’t due to anything we did necessarily rather than just running out of arms,” Sudbrook said. “When you play 10 games in 11 days, you really have to have a healthy 8-10 pitchers and we probably had a healthy six.”
Prior to their trip to Florida, the Bonnies were already down two pitchers-redshirt senior Michael Pease and junior RobertNalepa. Once they got down there, two additional pitchers fell to injury, including redshirt senior starter Cael Johnson.
The scheduled No. 4 starter, junior Andrew Revello, threw two innings on the first day and was immediately shut down for the rest of the trip after an injury. Revello was supposed to start two games and is scheduled to get an MRI today. Johnson sustained an oblique strain in his second outing and couldn’t help the team on the tail end of the trip.
“By the end of the week when we were 5-2 and playing pretty well, we basically just ran out of pitching,”Sudbrook said.
Senior catcher Michael Grieco pulled a quad muscle during the fourth game of the trip, forcing him to sit out four games. Junior Nick Lohrer filled in for Grieco until his return in the last two games of the trip against Georgetown and Northeastern.
Nalepa learned Wednesday he is out for the season with a torn labrum in his shoulder that requires surgery.
Sudbrook is hopeful the 12+ days of rest before next weekend’s series will help rejuvenate his team.
“We’re going to basically go on-a-day, off-a-day for the next three to four days till everyone gets healthy,”Sudbrook said.
Despite the injuries, Sudbrook said he was pleased with the way his top three arms – redshirt junior Eddie Gray (1-1), Johnson (1-0) and senior Jordan Crane (1-0) -performed in their first outings of the season.
“Our three starting pitchers that will be pitching conference games had multiple good outings,”Sudbrook said. “Those three guys threw outstanding.”
Johnson earned the win in the Bonnies’ first victory of the trip against Western Michigan Feb. 25. Getting the start in the March 1 game against Mount St. Mary’s, Johnson pitched four and two thirds innings recording five strikeouts and five walks. He allowed four earned runs and seven hits in his last outing of the trip.
Crane recieved a no-decision after throwing six innings in the Feb. 28 win against Western Michigan. Stepping in for Crane, sophomore Asa Johnson earned the win after pitching two innings of relief. Crane also pitched a complete game March 2 against the Mount St. Mary’s,leading theBonnies to a 5-3 win .
Gray pitched eight shut out innings Feb. 29 against the Mountaineers, in which the Bonnies captured the 5-0 win.
Junior starting second basemen and closer Jason Radwan had to start game nine against Georgetown whenRevello couldn’t start due to his injury.
“He was beating them 3-2 throwing a three-hitter in the eighth inning,” Sudbrook said. “He pitched a great game, but as a closer the most pitches he’d ever thrown in preparation for our season was 60. When he went into the ninth inning, he was at 115 pitches, so he just ran out of gas in that particular situation.”
Sudbrook said he’s happy with the way his team has been swinging the bats, but said its defense definitely needs work.
“We played poor defense,” Sudbrook said. “I think at best we’re probably an average defensive team. We have a couple of guys who play because they’re great hitters; not necessarily great defenders.”
The first conference game for the Bonnies is at Dayton March 23. Sudbrook said the team has been very successful against Dayton on its home turf, but it has been unable to defeat the Flyers on the road.
“That’s going to be a challenge right off,” Sudbrook said. “Dayton’s very good and they just about always make the tournament.”
In his 27th season as head coach for the Bonnies, Sudbrook’s confident his team can make it to the postseason this year after barely missing it last season.
The Bonnies tied with Richmond and La Salle for fifth last year. However, the team was denied a trip to A-10s after the Spiders and the Explorers held tie-breakers over it.
“In conference baseball, when you’re on the road playing somebody good, you always want to win at least one … you don’t want to get swept,” Sudbrook said. “When you’re at home, you want to win two out of three games or sweep a bad team, and that’s how you’re going to get into the (A-10) tournament, so that’s pretty much the plan.”
tuliosa10@bonaventure.edu
