Sports
First-year firepower complements senior stars for Hamilton men’s baseball
By Dave Meisel '13, Sports Staff Writer
March 29, 2012
The Hamilton baseball team’s season has been mired in disappointment, but with a bevy of young talent, they can only get better.
The Continentals finished up the Florida leg of their trip that ran from March 12 - March 22 with a 3-12 record in which their opponents more than doubled their run total. The Continentals gave up 122 runs while scoring only 58. The team and Coach Tim Byrnes have stayed positive because they know great things may lie ahead.
“With 22 underclassmen and only three players with two or more [years of] college experience, we are a very young team,” said the sixth-year head coach. “Being so young, we will continue to focus on three keys: not walking guys, playing good defense and being competitive.”
Despite giving up over eight runs a game, the Continentals’ pitching staff has displayed solid execution. “We started off great in terms of our control on the mound and being competitive, but it took a little while to get going on the defensive side,” said Byrnes. “As we left Florida, however, we started to find ourselves a bit in the field.”
Byrnes added that defensive improvement will be necessary with the Continentals heading into their in-conference schedule. Twelve of their 18 remaining games are against NESCAC competition. Despite their poor record, strong play against conference opponents will get them back into the NESCAC race.
This year’s Florida trip was a learning experience for Hamilton’s fledgling roster. With so much young talent, growing pains can be expected. The young talent should continue to gel, and the Continentals can succeed behind their veteran leadership.
The team’s two seniors, John Wulf and Sam Choate, have been essential parts of Hamilton’s program for a few years now. They have seized the opportunity to be leaders and have made irreplaceable contributions on the field.
After going 3-2 in 30.1 innings on the mound last year, Wulf has made solid contributions on both sides of the field. In six relief appearances, he has a 2.84 ERA and has allowed only eight baserunners. He is also third on the team in batting average at .294 and hasn’t made an error in 56 chances at second base.
Choate had a great Florida trip with 15 hits and leads the team in runs with 11. He needs just ten more hits to become the all-time leader in the program’s history and also has the chance to move into first place in runs scored, doubles, triples, home runs, total bases, at-bats and steals. It’s clear that the senior outfielder out of Weston, MA has been invaluable to the team, and Byrnes agrees. “He has had a great career, and I look forward to watching him tie or break each one of our program’s benchmarks.”
Hamilton is starting four or five first-years regularly, and a few of them have stood out so far. Coach Byrnes has his eye on catcher and third baseman Thomas Merriman, right-hander Ryan Crawford, right-hander Jonathan Lane and shortstop and right-handed pitcher Alex Pachella. Pachella’s performance has been particularly impressive. He’s 2-0 with a miniscule 0.69 ERA in two starts this year (13 innings).
The Continentals face their first NESCAC challenge this weekend at Amherst. They will play three games in two days against the Lord Jeffs, starting with one game on March 30 and a doubleheader on March 31. After that, they won’t play an in-conference game until April 13, when they play six straight NESCAC games at home: three against Middlebury and three against Wesleyan.