The baseball team’s season finish Oct. 6 marks the last organized team activity before spring training gets underway.
The fall baseball season gives teams a total of 16 practices and one game against another school, according to NCAA rules. The team divided practice into four sessions a week for a four week period, said head coach Pete Egbert.
Players maintained good workout shape and had intrasquad scrimmages to work on game day situations.
Coach Egbert said the scrimmages were new this fall season.
Senior Pitcher Matt Karabin felt that the scrimmages kept the players ready and showed that they take the game seriously regardless of the season.
“Everyone took the competition seriously,” said Karabin. “I felt like we got a lot out of it.”
Karabin is pleased with the team’s performance in the season-ending game against Penn-State Brandywine. Karabin said that it was a terrific test.
“I think we did good,” Karabin said. “The bats came alive and our team hadn’t hit like that in a while. Pitching wise and defensively, we were solid and everyone had a solid performance.”
The team practiced and played on campus grounds for the first time in almost two years. Coach Egbert said the new field and field house were good contributions to the team’s season.
“It was nice having the new facility,” said Egbert. “It was difficult transporting everyone off campus, so the new facility was huge for us and it made everything a lot easier.”
Egbert said now the task is to reevaluate the team as a whole.
“I think the fall [season] went well overall, “Egbert said. “It’s a good time for us to evaluate our new players and see where we think they’re going to fit in and see how our returning players have improved.”
Karabin said he expects more success.
“We had a lot of freshman so we were unsure about how it was going to be. Everyone worked hard and I like we accomplished a lot of things and we look good going into the spring.”
Egbert said he feels confident with the players returning to the team this season, and he feels the transfer and freshman players will contribute this spring.
“We feel good. We’re returning a lot guys that have been in situations for us,” said Egbert who spoke of returning players Kenny Durling, Evan Robaczewski and Karabin. “We have transfers that will help as well. We feel confident about where we stand, we know we need to work to get better. We didn’t finish where we wanted last year.”
This year’s roster is one of the biggest in recent years.
“We have a big roster,” said Karabin. “[We have] guys that work hard and a lot of returning guys. If everyone works hard this off-season, I feel we will be very successful.”
The baseball team finished 36-10 overall last season and won its second consecutive Freedom Conference Title, an accomplishment the team hopes to repeat.
Karabin said for now, players need off-season training before spring rolls around.
“I got pretty banged up this fall,” said Karabin. “My priority is getting healthy, getting in shape, getting stronger and get ready to move on. The others will push me like I push myself.”