Despite suffering setbacks with a March rife with cancellations and postponements — the squad missed their first six games due to weather conditions — the Oberlin College men’s baseball team is on track now after a 3-4 record in Florida over spring break and a 7-2 victory over Case Western Reserve University on April 2.
The Yeomen traveled to Cleveland Wednesday to defeat Case Western in a nine-inning game. Junior B.J. Belleville’s three-run homer in the third inning set the tone for the win, putting the team up 4-0.
The pitching staff then worked to pull out the victory, with sophomore Ryan Drews, junior Peter Wyatt and junior Troy DeWitt joining forces to yield merely three hits for the game and to fan eight batters.
Wyatt and DeWitt only allowed one hit in the last six innings, which saw just one Case Western player get on base.
“ We had a really good practice on Tuesday,” Lahetta said. “We had time to work some things out. [Against Case Western] we played like we were capable of playing.”
Both players and the coach expressed their exasperation with the weather conditions that made the game against Case Western the team’s first contest in Ohio.
“It was really frustrating,” junior Troy DeWitt said. “The first couple teams were some of the weaker teams on our schedule — some guys were chomping at the bits to play them. We thought we might be able to go into spring break 6-0.”
“The weather did hamper us early in the season,” Lahetta added. “We’ve had defensive problems, and the weather was a big factor in that. Other teams in the conference have played 16 games already, while we’ve only played eight.”
“We didn’t get a chance to get experience in before spring break,” senior Zachary Pretzer said. “It would’ve been nice to practice outside. But we did win our first two games in Florida.”
For the past three years, the baseball team has taken (and raised money for) the Spring Break trip down to participate in a tournament in Fort Myers, Florida, which Pretzer called “an opportunity to get games in when we can’t up here.”
“We stayed at a Motel 6,” Pretzer said. “It was the most affordable place down there — it was all right, but it’s not the Radisson.”
“The hotel was about 15 to 20 minutes away from the ballpark,” DeWitt added. “It was quite a bit away from the beach — Coach doesn’t want us partying too much.”
The team concluded the week with three wins, four losses and predictably, one game rained out.
The Yeomen swept Lawrence University 17-4, 16-7, in the first doubleheader on March 24. The next day they lost twice, falling 11-1 to Salisbury University and 16-15 to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
On March 27 the team chalked up their third win, beating Luther College 5-4, with the second game of the doubleheader rained out. The next day the Yeomen wrapped up their trip with two setbacks, an 8-2 loss to Otterbein College) and a 7-2 defeat against Coe College.
First-year Landon Learner thought the tournament was a good experience for the team.
“ We had good weather and got a lot of games in in a short amount of time,” he said. “I thought the team hit really well and came together pretty well.”
“At times we looked really solid offensively,” DeWitt said. “We were always making solid contact. But we were off defensively, which is understandable since we didn’t have too much of a chance to get infield practice in before we left.”
Fellow captain Pretzer agreed with DeWitt’s assessment.
“We hit around .365 as a team, which is phenomenal,” he said. “Fielding was definitely our biggest problem. We had lots of errors.”
It was a baseball-filled week for the Yeomen, as many team members chose to spend their day off (March 26) watching the Boston Red Sox take on the Cincinnati Reds in a spring training game. The team also managed a few trips to the beach, though mainly several hours of baseball left them exhausted at night.
Pretzer called the trip “absolutely necessary,” noting that “if you take away the seven games, we haven’t played yet” prior to Case Western.
“It was definitely a good opportunity for the freshmen to get good competition in, especially weatherwise,” DeWitt added.
Many of those same first-years played vital roles in the tournament.
“The freshmen were our most surprising and some of our biggest contributors,” Pretzer acknowledged.
“Basically we want to improve every time we go out there,” Lahetta said.
“All the guys have stated that they want to break the school record for wins, which is 15. And we wanted to be fighting for a conference playoff spot."