Baseball to start season in early March
As the 2010 baseball season begins, the Bulldogs start with a preseason ranking of 15th in the nation for Division III. This year’s Bulldogs will be lead by first- team preseason All-American senior outfielder Alex Cowart and junior pitcher Ryan Domschot. The team is looking to win back-to-back MIAA conference titles after compiling a 2009 25-3 record in conference play and a 33-11 overall record. So how does a team make improvements after a season that successful?
“There are always improvements to make,” said head coach Crain Rainey. “We want to do a better job on offense as far as working pitchers and getting our pitches. We also want to do a better job at scoring runners from third with less than two outs. As far as the pitchers goes, we want to limit the freebies [walks, hit by pitch and errors].”
The team begins its season March 7th in Birmingham, Alabama, in a day-night double header against Wabash and Birmingham Southern. After three games in Alabama, the team will travel to Georgia to face Bridgewater, Va. and Piedmont, Ga. The Bulldogs start their trek back north by playing in Indiana for three days facing face Franklin twice and DePauw once. A week later they will head to Tiffin, Ohio, to face number 10 ranked Heidelberg. Heidelberg is then scheduled to return to Bulldog territory for an AC home game. The past two seasons Adrian has knocked out Heidelberg from the Mideast Regional.
On March 24th, cross-town rival Siena Heights rolls into Nicolay Field for the first meeting of the year as Adrian looks to prepare for the upcoming MIAA schedule beginning on March 27th in Grand Rapids against Calvin, who will most likely be the Bulldog’s biggest competition for the MIAA crown. The Bulldogs wrap up their conference season and regular season schedule May 8th at Kalamazoo College. A preseason look at the Mideast regional includes Wooster College (ranked 2nd in the nation), Heidelberg (10th ranked nationally), Marietta College (14th in the nation), Adrian College (15th in the nation), Rose-Hulman (21st in the nation), with the 6th and final spot up for grabs.
As starting pitcher Alex Webster and closer Nick VanDike depart, the Bulldogs will look to replace them with a mixture of returners. Junior Ryan Domschot will lead the pitching staff, a season after setting an Adrian College record for wins with 10.
“It’s all behind my back now,” Domschot said about his statistics from last year. “It’s a new year.”
This year’s starting rotation offers familiar faces.
“When healthy we will look to use Ryan Domschot, Nick Sarkissian, Josh Lancaster, and use Jason Fryman and David Partyka as the fourth starters,” said Rainey. “We will rely on Dan Welch to close out games for us.”
With the departure of National Gold Glove shortstop Todd Meyers and center fielder Kris Powell, the Bulldogs are left with a couple holes to fill in a line-up that returns six of eight position players. In the infield, they return third basemen, junior Brian Bilius, second basemen, senior Steve Vanderheyden and first basemen, junior Jake Cappelletty.
Meyers departure from shortstop leaves a hole that must be filled.
“We haven’t made any final decisions yet on our shortstop and probably won’t make a final decision until after the spring trip,” said Rainey. “We have four decent shortstops that all have their strengths and weakness.”
In the outfield, the Dawgs return left fielder, senior Alex Cowart, and right fielder, senior Andrew Anderson. Playing center, junior Nate Sarkissian will fill the void left by Powell. Sarkissian is used to playing center, though; he filled in a lot last season as Powell had a knee injury that forced him to DH. In all, the Bulldogs lost two infielders and one outfielder.
“I’m going to try not to do too much and stay within myself at all times,” Cowart said.
According to Cowart, the position player’s goals are simple; “We want to win the league, regionals and make it to the World Series.”
Bulldog pitchers have goals for this season as well.
“As a pitching staff we want less than three walks per game, less than 13 pitches per inning so we can try to save arms and we want to try to go deeper into games,” Domschot said.
The team realizes to be successful team play will have to play as a unit.
“We need to play strong defense, have strong pitching and have timely hitting,” Cowart said. “Almost everyone can steal a base if needed.”
The Bulldog coaching staff likewise has goals for season play this year.
“Our first goal is always to win the MIAA, then to get into the NCAA Regional and make it to the World Series,” Rainey said. “We have enough talent to win the league and make it out of the Regionals. The last three years we won the ERA title in the MIAA, so this year we want to win the ERA and Fielding percentage titles in the league.”
This season looks to have four anchors in the Bulldog lineup.
“We will look to Cowart, Domschot, and both Sarkissian brothers to be the keys to this season, Rainey said. “Nick Sarkissian will bat fourth for us and we will need him to protect Cowart in the line-up. We also need to find someone to take Todd Meyers’ spot in the batting order and on the field.”
Rainey also said that they would look to fill the leadoff spot with either Anderson or Nate Sarkissian.
Two players with slightly different leadership techniques will head the Bulldogs this year.
“I’m a quiet leader,” Cowart said. “I really don’t try to say much. [I] lead by example.” Domschot’s leadership style may not be the same as Cowart’s but both have their sights set on guiding the team to success.
“I try to motivate others to work hard and to help the team,” Domschot said.