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by ROB JENKINS
Sports Reporter
With three games remaining in their season, the Appalachian State University club baseball team is one win away from clinching the team’s first ever appearance in their regional tournament.
The Mountaineers’ record stands at 12-3 overall and 9-0 in South Atlantic-West Conference play.
The team credits much of their success this year to the ability to hit the baseball well.
The Mountaineers’ team batting average stands at a remarkable .373.
Starting pitcher
and physical education major T. Blake McFarland praised the team’s
ability to hit well despite not always having a practice space
conducive to full workouts.
“We
don’t really have a lot of space to hit, so we don’t see a lot of live
pitching,” McFarland said. “Everybody’s just hitting the ball real
hard.”
Team
president and junior management major R. Bryan Holbrook agreed with
McFarland, and added his praise to the team’s balanced play.
“The
hitting has been really productive,” Holbrook said. “You don’t really
see any glaring weaknesses on our team. There’s not really that one
thing that you can point out and say ‘this is hurting us.’ We’ve been
hitting the ball well, our pitching has looked pretty good and our
defense has been outstanding.”
In previous seasons, the Mountaineers had been short on pitching, which hurt the team’s play.
Members of the team feel this season’s pitching staff has improved throughout the year and has more depth.
Senior physical education major Cory M. Childress spoke about the differences between the pitching this season and last season.
“Last
year at this time it was ‘who do we have to pitch?’” Childress, the
team’s vice-president said. “This year we have the luxury of, depending
on the situation [deciding] who we’re going to throw out there. [Our
starters] have been absolutely magnificent.”
Holbrook believes the success of the pitching this season owes much to the team’s prowess at the plate.
“You
know, you plan on going into a three-game series playing 23 innings
with two seven [inning games] and a nine [inning game],” Holbrook said.
“When you start 10 run ruling people after five, it sounds bad, but
when you’re starting to play 16 innings a weekend instead of 23,
obviously your guys inning and pitch counts won’t be as high.”
Appalachian faces the University of Tennessee at Knoxville this weekend.
One win
against the Volunteers will crown the Mountaineers conference champions
and give them an automatic bid to theNational Club Baseball Association
south regionals.
“I think
we’re going to surprise some people [at regionals],” McFarland said.
“We’re flying under the radar as far as the rankings go. We’re going to
surprise some people.”
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