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| Short of Tourney, Spartans Still Hold Heads High | |||
| Michael Steinhofer Staff Writer |
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| The chase for Ryan Carr’s homerun record has come to a close, just like Manchester College baseball team’s season. Sophomore Ty Foster and Seniors Corey Oetting and Matty Miller were all on track midway through the year to pass Carr’s 2003 record of 15 homeruns in a single season, but all three players fell short, with Oetting having 13 bombs, Miller having 12, and Foster rounding out the trio with 11.
The Spartans finished the season with a 21-18 overall record, and went 12-10 in the Heartland Collegiate Athletic Conference. Manchester finished 5th in the conference and was beat out by rival Anderson University by a half game. “It seems like it’s always just one game that gets us,” said sophomore Catch John Smolinski with a bittersweet smile. “If we would just have played better against Defiance we would be in the conference tourney right now,” he later added. For the seniors this past weekend was the last time most of them will step on a field ever again;as for the underclassmen, things look bright with a majority of the contributing players returning. “We missed the post season, and I was pretty bummed about that,” said senior Colin Denihan said as he reflected on the year in which he struck out 33 batters, had three wins and four loses in ten appearances. “But I loved playing for coach Espy and with all of the guys.” Even after a tough end to this year, the Spartans are still optimistic about the future. Junior Josh Atkinson said: “We had a lot of great things happen this year. Tons of records were broken and it was an absolute blast. We lose some big hitting seniors and our ace, but hopefully more people will step up again next year and we’ll make it to the tournament.” Atkinson carried a large load for the Manchester pitching staff during the 2009 season, appearing in 16 games, throwing 63.2 innings, striking out 42 batters all while piling up seven wins and three loses. Even though the season is over the excitement is not. On May 13, the H.C.A.C. will release their All-H.C.A.C. teams, and Manchester has several players who have the opportunity to make the first team. As the Spartans await the all conference selections they have to watch the conference tournament, which consists of four teams against which they had recorded four wins and eight losses. Although the Spartans say goodbye to six seniors who have racked up 94 wins in their time on Gratz field, they say hello to an eager bunch of underclassmen and a strong recruiting class anxiously waiting for their shots to prove themselves on the field. |
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