Baseball Season In Review

Jun 2, 2006

The Allegheny College baseball team had its share of ups and downs throughout the 2006 season, starting the year 3-11 before rebounding to go 11-7 down the final stretch of the season, ending the year at 14-18.

The squad’s schedule did not do it any favors, as it played in eight games against 2006 NCAA Tournament teams, including two to eventual Division III Champion Marietta.

The Gators struggled during their Arizona spring trip, dropping the first two games of the season by a combined 21-3 score. The bats exploded in their next game, a 14-9 win over Buena Vista, before the team dropped their next two games 3-6 and 0-7. Two wins over the next three games, including one over Southern Maine, a NCAA Tournament team, put the squad at 3-5.

The team hit an icy patch, falling in its next six games, falling to 3-11 through 14 games. The team then upset then second ranked Wooster 3-2, as the Gators fell in the series 3-1, with the largest margin of victory of the series coming by three runs. Four straight wins over Oberlin in which the Gators averaged nearly eight runs a game put the Blue and Gold in position to make the NCAC Tournament.

Back-to-back losses to Kenyon put the two squads in a tie for the second bid, as Allegheny won the third game, putting themselves a game ahead of the Lords. In the fourth and final game of the series, the Lords put 15 runs across the plate, winning 15-6 and taking a one-game lead into the last conference series of the year.

After dropping its next two games, the squad ended the year on a five-game win streak, finishing the season at 14-18 overall, missing the playoffs, finishing a game behind Kenyon.

“We had quite a few new faces in the lineup this year,” said head baseball coach Mike Ferris. “The inexperience showed out of the gate in Phoenix. We struggled early on doing a lot of the little things correctly, but as the year went along, the team settled down. As the guys got more comfortable playing, they started to relax and play with more confidence. As a result, we were playing good baseball towards the end of the season.”

Leading the team was a pair of pitchers, Drew Scibetta and Craig Misiewicz. Scibetta ended the season with 79 strikeouts in 60.1 innings, an average of 11.8 per nine innings, sixth best total in Division III. He also had a 5-5 record and a 4.18 earned run average, walking just 11 during the season. Misiewicz was 3-3 on the year with a 4.47 earned run average, striking out 42 batters in just over 48 innings of work.

Swinging the bats for the Gators were five players who hit over .300 on the year, led by the tandem of Jimmy Fernandez and Eric Rich. Fernandez led the team, batting .351 with 17 runs scored while Rich batted .350 with a team-high four triples, driving in 23 runs on the year.

Matt Young, who batted .336 as a freshman, mirrored the Gators struggles, batting .135 through 18 games, before ending the year on a tear, batting .543 over the team’s final 14 games, improving his batting average to .327 at the end of the season. He led the team with five home runs and 30 runs batted in.

Leading the way with postseason honors was Scibetta, who was named to the All-NCAC Second Team while senior catcher Zack Oblak was named to the All-NCAC Honorable Mention squad.

“Position-wise, we have a good nucleus returning next year,” said Ferris. “We are going to count on some of the position players who gained experience this year to lead the team in 2007. Losing to graduation the experience we had at pitcher, we will be looking for new faces to make significant contributions for us next spring on the mound.”

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