BY JARED NOLAN

In print | Published March 19, 2009

Swarthmore baseball stayed busy over spring break, playing nine games over nine days. The team spent the first half of the week in Arizona and played two games against Pitt-Bradford (3-1) and four against Wesleyan (3-3). The Garnet picked up a win against each team to leave the American Southwest with a 3-5 overall record.

Back on the East Coast, Swarthmore heated up against Baptist Bible (0-1), scoring 21 runs while only allowing three in a lopsided victory. The success continued the following day when the Garnet swept a double-header against SUNY IT (3-7) on the last day of spring break. Swarthmore fell behind early in both games but managed to rally and end spring break with a 6-5 winning record.
Coming into the season, the Garnet set a goal to remain competitive in every game and the team has met that objective. “So far we are heading to each game with a focused approach,” head coach Stan Exeter said. “We have been competing in every game to the last pitch.” Thus far, the Garnet has not lost by more than eight runs, and the average deficit for a defeat is just over four runs, so all of the losses have been close. Also, the team has won a game against every college faced, indicating that no opponent has been out of the Garnet’s league.

Overall, Exeter commended his players’ effort over the grueling spring break. “This year the schedule was more challenging in quality of teams and number of games,” he said. “It was a very aggressive schedule, and the team handled it very well.”

The number of games also allowed many different players to see action in varied combinations and line-ups, and the back-to-back games and doubleheaders played to the Garnet’s biggest strength — depth.

With 14 new faces on the team, Swarthmore has much more to work with this year and has plugged some holes in the line-up, but the biggest strength also created the greatest weakness. “[Our] weakness is we are still a young team,” Exeter said. He believes his players just need to gain more experience and stop making the same mistakes in order to succeed.

In spite of limited collegiate experience, many of Exeter’s first-year players are proving to be successful. Mike Waterhouse ’12, who has been selected as the Centennial Conference Hitter of the Week, has safely hit in all seven games he has started and leads the team in batting average and slugging percentage. Among all the Garnet pitchers, Kyle Crawford ’12 has struck out the most batters. Spencer Ross ’12, Anthony Montalbano ’12 and Michael Cameron ’12 have all hit home runs and are among the RBI leaders for Swarthmore.

Cameron made an especially strong contribution in an away contest against Neumann College that resulted in a 20-10 Garnet victory. Two clutch home runs by the first-year helped Swarthmore put the game out of reach in the eighth inning, at which a setting sun caused the game to be called.

Cameron and classmate Waterhouse each contribued four runs in the win, while Ben Schneiderman ’11added three. Seven other Garnet baseballers tagged home plate, a testament to the depth of the large squad.

While the team saw much improvement come to fruition after spring break, there are still some concerns that must be addressed before conference games begin in a little under a week. “We need to sure up our pitching rotation and just get more experienced,” Exeter said. “This week leading up to conference play is again pretty challenging.” Indeed, the Garnet finished 3-15 against Centennial Conferenece opponents last year, despite having a less discouraging 10-21 record when taking into account games against non-conference opponents.

Swarthmore’s current record of 7-5 is a touch ahead of its pre-conference record from 2008, when the Garnet were 6-5 before opening the season at Washington.

The Centennial Conference baseball season will kick off on March 24, when Swarthmore will travel to Muhlenberg (5-9). Swarthmore currently has the best record in the conference, which is encouraging though it is important to note that each team has faced different opponents thus far.

Only two more teams on the 2009 schedule separate Swarthmore from Centennial Conference opponents. The Garnet will have to finals opporunities for a pre-conference tune-up this weekend, when the squad will travel to Penn State-Berks (5-6-1) on Saturday for a double header before returning home to play on Sunday at 1:00 p.m. against Misericordia (9-6).

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