By: Jimmy Brooks, News Staff
He doesn’t know what the starting lineup will look like, but senior pitcher and co-captain Les Williams does know one thing – where the Huskies are getting their drive.
“We gotta prove a lot of people wrong this year,” Williams said. “[The Colonial Athletic Association coaches’ poll] have us at the bottom of the conference again. It’ll be a lot of motivation for the new guys, and the older guys, especially. We hope to have a good year, a lot better than last year.”
The Huskies return this season after losing seven seniors, including the entire outfield, from the 2010 squad. This, combined with the 13-31 record the team posted, are perhaps the driving force behind the CAA coaches’ decision to vote the Huskies last in the conference. That hasn’t phased Williams or his teammates, including junior and 2010 All-CAA first team pitcher Andrew Leenhouts.
“We’ll definitely have a chip on our shoulders,” Leenhouts said. “Being picked last in the conference doesn’t sit well with us.”
The squad begins the year with a nine-day spring break trip to West Palm Beach, Fla. The Huskies will play 11 teams, most notably the Boston Red Sox on Feb. 26.
After that, however, the Huskies must partake in the remaining 45 games, a grueling schedule that includes 33 games against CAA opponents.
“We have to best prepare our team for our conference schedule,” junior first baseman Matt Miller said. “We get right into it, we play every team this year like we did two years ago.”
After Florida, the squad will play 13 of their first 16 games away from home. Excluding the Florida trip, the Huskies will have traveled more than 4,500 miles before they play in their first series at Friedman Diamond April 4 versus Hofstra.
“It’s gonna be tough having the first bunch of games away, but that’s good for us, being able to play in better weather,” Leenhouts said.
When the Huskies briefly suit up at home for one game against Brown March 16 before they hit the road again, they will be treated with a newly surfaced field. Earlier in the year, the field was relegated a 2-star rating by the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), making it the first two-star surface in all of college sports.
“We practiced out there in the fall,” said Miller. “It’s really nice, it plays more like a grass field, it’s not as bouncy.”
Conditions aside, McPhee said the 2011 season will ultimately prove to be a change of pace for the Huskies.
“Offensively, we do not have a lot of power,” he said. “We do have more speed in the lineup. Our priority is to make contact, move runners, not play for the big inning so much as move the runners over into scoring position. That seems to be what our offense is going to be right now.”
In January, the NCAA ordered changes to all baseball bats being used at the collegiate level. The aluminium bats now perform like their wooden counterparts; the ball travels off the bat slower, and thus poses less of an injury risk to pitchers and infielders. Last season, players were subject to balls being launched at them at speeds up to 120 mph. This season, the new bats will tone down ball speeds and increase player safety.
McPhee said that he thought there would be a lot of unknowns for the team, because of the combination of the new bat and the new style of play he plans to deploy this year.
With 20 of the 32 players on the squad being underclassmen, the Huskies will likely have to rely on raw talent as opposed to experience. Yet McPhee said he feels there is enough leadership to go around.
“The strength of the team is clearly our pitching,” McPhee said. “We have our top Colonial Athletic Association coaches poll two pitchers back, Les Williams and Drew Leenhouts. Both had strong years last year, as starters. There’s a lot of experience there. Both are considered top pitchers in the conference.
After those two, however, the question remains if the rest of the staff can hold up. McPhee firmly believes that the Huskies are looking good.
“[Sophomores] Chris Carmain and Dylan Maki have both looked good, so has freshman Matt Cook,” McPhee said. “Veterans like [senior] JT Ross has really been an experienced pitcher for us. [Senior] Brandon McNelis has jumped into the potential third starter spot as well.”
As for Williams and Leenhouts, they stated that the main goal this season was to make the year-end CAA-tournament.
“We didn’t do it last year,” said Williams. “We really wanna get there again, especially for the older guys that tasted it once.”
However, the only way to get to CAA Championships is to win games, and wins are hard to come by in the CAA. The Huskies will get their first idea of just how hard winning will be this year, when they face Sacred Heart in West Palm Beach, Fla. Feb. 25.
