Wheaton Wire

Issue date: 4/29/09 Section: Sports

Media Credit: Michaela Bunker ’11 Historically the Lyons have lived and died by the strength of their pitching. This season, despite the increase in run production, the Wheaton team has still stuck by their pitching-first mentality.

In a span of less than a week, Babson twice delivered devastating blows to the Wheaton baseball team. On April 24 they prevented Wheaton from clinching the NEWMAC regular season title. And then this past Saturday the Beavers eliminated Wheaton in the NEWMAC Tournament semifinals 8-7. The Lyons now look to right the ship in their remaining games in hopes of qualifying for the NCAA Tournament.

Prior to NEWMACs Head Coach Eric Podbelski seemed upbeat: "Our goal is to win a NEWMAC Championship and we have an opportunity to accomplish that starting this week."

Through his 13 phenomenal years, Podbelski has established Wheaton as a top D-III team with a winning percentage over .700 during his tenure. Though a seasoned and successful coach is a valuable asset, Podbelski makes it clear that much of this team's success is due to the hardworking mentality of his players. "Always, any success we have is attributed to having good players who work hard and like to compete."

The focused play that the team is noted for, however, has clearly been absent as of late.
Offensively, Wheaton has out performed their opponent in almost every category including batting average, home runs, and RBI. They have scored 336 runs this season, averaging over nine runs a game compared to their opponent's five. The Lyons fight and strive to win each, and this tenacious spirit impresses Podbelski.

"I think our team has shown a great deal of resiliency to this point in the season." says Podbelski. "I'm hoping it serves us well going forward." It goes without saying that the team will need to rely on this quality to overcome their recent stumblings.

As good as the bats have been, however, Wheaton baseball's philosophy for winning starts and ends with quality pitching. Wheaton's pitching, led by co-captain Adam Gingras '09 and his 3.00 ERA, has been very effective at routinely shutting down opponents. Of the 33 games this season, only 12 times did Wheaton allow over five runs. Unfortunately, two of those instances were the two aforementioned losses to Babson.

What does bode well for the Lyons, however, is that much of the pitching staff's success can be attributed to the leadership from the team's six senior hurlers.

With the NEWMAC Tournament now over, the Lyons must regroup to win their final games in an attempt to improve their regular season resume for postseason.

"We would like to play good baseball and we'll take our chances," said Podbelski on whether his team would have to make any adjustments entering the home stretch.

Clearly, with the way team has been playing overall this season, there may be only a few adjustments that need to be made for the team to return to their traditional winning ways.

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