Baseball team swings into action soon
By: Spencer Paterick `21 Staff Writer
LVC’s baseball team looks to improve with a new head coach in charge.
Although the baseball team’s first game isn’t until late February, preparation has already begun. One could even say that it began last summer. In early July, Jonas Fester was named head coach. Fester replaced Keith Evans, who led the team for 15 years. Fester was a former assistant coach at his alma mater Johns Hopkins University from 2008 to 2010 and again in 2012.
“Last year didn’t play out as we had hoped, but I really think we can turn things around this year,” Kyle Kingsbury, a sophomore right-handed pitcher, said. “Coach Fester brings a lot to the table and the whole team is eager to learn from what he has to offer.”
Last year as a freshman, Kingsbury appeared in nine games and pitched for a total of 49 innings in which he allowed 23 runs and struck out a team high 32 batters. Kingsbury emerged as LVC’s top freshman pitcher as he posted an ERA of 2.54 and held opponents to a batting average of .269.
The team looks to bounce back after finishing with a record of 11-23 in 2018. It started out the season with wins in three of its first four games, but the team slowly lost ground as the season went on.
“We have a lot of confidence coming into the season this year,” Matt Blocksom, a sophomore left-handed pitcher, said. “We are doing a lot this off-season in order to make sure that we limit the mistakes that we make on the field. We need to be able to execute in tight situations and I think that we will be able to do that this year.”
Blocksom pitched in just 10 innings last season after injuring his shoulder midway through the year. He managed to only give up four runs, struck out eight batters, and had an ERA of 3.6 in just seven games in 2018. Despite having shoulder surgery over the summer, Blocksom is hoping to be ready to play by the time the team has its first game.
The team returns almost all the starters from last year, except for three players who graduated. Although cuts have yet to be made, the team is relatively young –16 freshman, eight sophomores, seven juniors and five seniors.
The captains for this year are Josh Marcelli, a senior first baseman and right-handed pitcher; Josh Willey, a senior catcher and TJ Holdredge, a junior third baseman and right-handed pitcher.
The season will begin as doubleheader on Saturday, Feb. 23, against the Penn College Wildcats at McGill Field. The first pitch is at noon. The team will spend spring break in Florida and is scheduled to play nine games in seven days.
The 2019 baseball team’s schedule is on our website: http://wordpress.lvc.edu/wordpress/lavie/2019/02/04/2019-baseball-schedule/