The Hillsdale Chargers baseball team returned from Florida on Monday night with a 2-3 record, lessons learned, and high hopes for the beginning of conference play.
The Chargers spent Thursday through Monday in Florida, where they beat St. Michael’s College in a Saturday 6-5 win, and on Sunday, 10-6. The team lost their three other games: 10-3 against University of Massachusetts Lowell, 8-4 against Florida Tech, and 7-3 to Slippery Rock.
“We learned a lot more about our personnel and our youth that we’re playing,” head coach Paul Noce said. “We learned about some combinations of different players at different times, and we saw some good things in our pitching.”
“We didn’t play exceptionally well, but played some tough competition,” senior Scott Lantis said. “It was a combination of those two things, but the trip didn’t hurt our confidence.”
Freshman Luke Ortel has been consistently putting up hits this year. He had another productive weekend, going 9-for-24 with 5 RBIs. Another freshman, Chris McDonald, hit a walk-off home run in the 11th inning of Hillsdale’s 6-5 win on Saturday. Seniors Mike Vanchieri and Brad Hayden also contributed a number of hits and RBIs over the weekend.
The team accumulated 12 extra base hits on this trip, increasing the total for the season to 36, a number that is especially encouraging. Last year, the team hit 53 in the entire season.
Senior Kris Morris pitched Monday’s game against Slippery Rock, throwing eight innings and striking out a career-high of eight batters. Morris developed a sidearm delivery after coming back from surgery, and set the school record for saves in 2012.
“Even though he got the loss, I think Morris had the best start of his career,” Lantis said.
Noce said the team needs more timely hitting, and the number of strikeouts is too high, but they have been improving consistently. They are looking forward to beginning conference play this weekend, weather permitting. Wednesday’s games against Grand Valley State have already been postponed.
“I think the team believes that they can do well [in conference play],” Noce said. “They’re believing in themselves and they’re looking forward to having a good year.”
Ortel said the team has played well so far, and has been able to learn from every outing.
“In our most recent trip, we found that when we were successful, it was when we were all there and motivated by each other,” Ortel said. “I think that we learned that we do have capabilities and can compete with the best teams.”
Last Wednesday, the team got to attend the Dominican Republic versus United States of America game of the World Baseball Classic in Miami, Fla. Noce said it was a great experience for the players, and their seats were upgraded from $15 to $200 seats.
“It was very festive,” he said. “Those countries are loud, so there were a lot of horns and drums in the stands. It was really cool that they got to experience that.”
“It was the craziest atmosphere at a sporting event that I’ve ever been to,” Lantis said. “The US was playing an away game in its own country.”
Lantis said the team feels confident heading into conference play, which is scheduled to start on Saturday at 1 p.m. in Hillsdale against Lake Erie.
“We’re 7-6 and played three nationally-ranked teams, and we played them all tough,” Lantis said. “In a non-conference schedule, we want to gain some confidence and momentum and we want to get better, and we have done both those things. We’re over .500 heading into conference play, so we’re excited.”
