Cardinals Headed South for Season Openers

It has been a while since the last blog, but our practices have not changed much. We are still working on all of the little things each and every day to make sure we are ready for the beginning of games. Our defense looks very solid right now, our pitching has been taking shape as the pitch counts have increased, and our hitting is coming along as well. With just a couple of days left before we play our first game, I’m going to preview the games we’ll play down in Myrtle Beach this weekend.

The first game is on Thursday at 6:30 p.m. against Manchester College (21-18 last season) from Indiana, who we also play the next evening at 6:30 as well. We played them last year in Myrtle Beach, and won 15-4, to close out our trip. Manchester lost a few of their top hitters from last year, including Matty Miller (.435 avg., 12 home runs, 50 RBI) and Corey Oetting (.344 avg., 14 home runs, 58 RBI). However they bring back a lot of production as well, with Ty Foster being their most prominent hitter (.396 avg., 11 home runs, 50 RBI). They only seem to have lost one real contributor from their pitching staff, Colin Denihan (3 wins, 10 starts). Curtis Mallery and Brett Smalley will probably be their #1 and #2 pitchers (5-6, 29 combined starts).

The next afternoon, we play Penn State Berks (22-23-1 last season), who won their conference tournament in 2009. Last year, we played them in a very close game, a 4-0 win, and we expect it to be close again. They return a first team all-conference and NEAC Pitcher of the Year in Brad Swavely (6-2, 6.02 ERA), and their second team all-conference and leading hitter in production in Seth Shultz (.340 avg., 6 home runs, 53 RBI).

On Saturday, we have our last two games, starting with Wilkes College from Pennsylvania. They will probably be our toughest test in Myrtle Beach once again. They finished 29-12 last season, including a 1-1 record against us in South Carolina. They lost the two of their top three hitters in Andrew Garofoli and Geoff Miller (10 home runs and 77 RBI combined). They also lost their ace on their pitching staff in Brad Swavely, but return a lot of their roster on both sides.

The last game of the trip is against Penn State Abington, who also loses their top hitter in Michael Angelo (.430 avg., 31 runs, 8-8 stolen bases). Abington is a team who struggled to field the ball well defensively last season, with a team fielding percentage of .913. We have to make sure we put the ball in play and see what happens when we play them. They are also very aggressive on the bases, so when we’re on defense, we need to make sure we stay awake and be ready for them to steal, hit and run, or try to take the extra base.

#17=Matt Burns