By Gavin Lindahl
Assistant Sports Editor
The baseball team played two of its three scheduled games against Atlantic 10 opponent St. Joseph’s this past weekend, dropping both games. The Bonnies lost by a collective 25 runs over the span of the two games.
Coach Larry Sudbrook said Saint Joe’s recent success, as well as the Bonnies’ continuous scoring woes, contributed to the losses.
“Saint Joe’s, for the first time in the history of their school last year, made it to the A-10 tournament, and they did it with a team of juniors. Now they’re seniors, and they’re pretty good,” Sudbrook said. “Offensively, we still only scored our three, four runs. That’s all we can eke out.”
The struggle to score runs has been present all season for the team, but what was different against Saint Joe’s was the team’s struggle to pitch well, according to Sudbrook.
“They just beat the hell out of us and two good pitchers of ours. Seniors Asa Johnson and Joel Rosencrance have been very good pitchers for us. Joel, just the weekend before went for 10 innings and held VCU, the 24th ranked team in the country, to only three runs. St. Joe’s beat him to death with base hits, and they did the same thing to Asa,” Sudbrook said. “So the only thing we’ve done well consistently all year, we didn’t do it well there. That being said, you can’t expect your best pitchers to be awesome every game. They gave us no chance to compete, and they would tell you the same thing.”
The Bonnies did bounce back this past Tuesday against Buffalo in a doubleheader. The Bonnies lost their first game by a run, but won their second by a score of 6-4.
Sudbrook, who was still unimpressed with the Bonnies’ output on offense, said that the team’s game plan and pitching is what won them the second game.
“We came in with a plan in the second game because they have a left-handed pitcher who started that game who is really good, but he’s wild. So we didn’t swing until we had two strikes in the first two innings against him. We got a lot of walks, scored some runs and we got him shook up, so we were able to hang on.” Sudbrook said. “Really, the only thing that changed in those two games was the fact that our pitching was back to what it normally was, and we scored a few more runs in the second game.”
Despite the team’s struggles, Sudbrook says that team morale is still high – an important aspect of the rebuilding process.
“Everyone’s battling, and everyone’s supporting each other. That’s key because when things start going bad, players can be quick to turn on one another and nobody is,” Sudbrook said. “Everybody’s still working hard.”
The Bonnies will play another conference series when they host Saint Louis this weekend. The Bonnies play today at 3 p.m. and will play at noon on Saturday and Sunday. The Billikens are currently sitting atop the A-10, having won all six of their conference games.
While the Bonnies will have their backs against the wall, Sudbrook is taking some optimism out of this year’s tough schedule and hard luck.
“Unfortunately, we’ve got this young team which is struggling. We opened against nationally-ranked VCU, then we played St. Joe’s who has a senior-dominated roster and now we play Saint Louis who won the A-10 last year. They went to the NCAA regionals and won 43 games. They’re extremely good, and they have two stud pitchers who will pitch the first two games. Saint Louis is going to be a real challenge,” Sudbrook said. “Fortunately, it’s better off playing some of these really good teams and get this experience this season when we’re not going to make the tournament. Next year, we’ll miss some of these teams because you don’t play the same teams every year. So next year we’ll be a little better, little older, little more experienced, and we’ll have a better schedule. We’ll have a better chance to win our conference games.”
Sophomore pitcher Steven Klimek, who is one of the Bonnies’ conference starters, will return from an oblique strain this weekend. According to Sudbrook, Klimek will pitch a few innings this weekend and will continue to work back up during the following weeks. With Klimek back, the team is at full strength going into today’s game.
