The Pacific University baseball team is going to rely on two main components in order to come out of spring 2018 as the Northwest Conference (NWC) champions. The baseball team will need to take their tough pre-conference schedule and a wide array of player experience, to improve from last year’s 15-23 season record.
After coming home with four loses in Louisiana last weekend, two of the losses being from nationally ranked Centenary College, the Boxer baseball team is looking use this experience to move forward in a positive way.
“I think this trip really gave us a gut check on where we stand,” senior catcher Luke Peevyhouse said. “Being the first weekend of the season, it exposed our weaknesses as well as our strengths. We also played two pretty good schools there and it was nice to see where we stack up talent wise.”
The Boxers upcoming schedule is going to test their strengths and weakness early. Although having lost the first four games, the lessons the team has learned so far are going to be instrumental for the team’s future success.
Another way the team will be able to strive this year is through an extremely experienced roster. With 17 seniors, most of them being in the starting lineup, the baseball team will have a large supply of senior experience to draw from in any situation they encounter this season.
“We have a lot of returners coming back with strong underclassmen who are going to be able to contribute as well,” senior first baseman Cade Wilkins said. “Our strength is experience, we have a lot of guys who have played before this year and know what we need to do to win.”
Although the baseball team has brought in a decent number of talented freshmen, the upperclassmen experience and leadership will be crucial to the team’s overall success this season.
The baseball team will have their first conference game against Pacific Lutheran University, on Pacific’s new turf field Friday, Feb. 9.
Leave a Reply