A geoduck spring (new 2008 season information)

The new home schedule schedule is here (full team schedule here and league schedule here), and it turns out there are only two home series the entire season. So, for Pete’s sake, don’t blink, or you’ll miss it.

Unfortunately, one of those series is against the U of O. Of all the teams I would rather not watch play Evergreen, its Oregon and Seattle University.

Anyway, from the link above, you can probably tell that the baseball team has their own website now, so I’ll be writing over here myself, hopefully providing some way off campus perspective. And, with only two Olympia series to cover, it will be easier this year anyway.

Updated schedule for this weekend

There were some changes to the schedule this weekend. There will be one late afternoon game on Saturday and a doubleheader on Sunday:

4/28 Central Oregon CC 4:00 PM
4/29 Central Oregon CC 10:00 AM
4/29 Central Oregon CC 30 Minutes after first game ends

Baseball Team Hits Newsstands

Here’s an article written by Evergreen student Arland Hurd in the April19th issue of the Evergreen State college newspaper, the Cooper Point Journal.

With a record of 0-10 the Geoduck baseball team focuses on improvements and trying to get into their groove for their last games of the year. The team has aquired losses while playing Western, Seattle University, Eastern and the University of Oregon, but with nine strikeouts in one game and power hitters like returning player Antonio Olguin, the Geoducks are showing they can get a win. This year the team been building like any good organization has to do. “We just got done with our best series,” Gavin Dahl said. Having players on the bases every inning up till the seventh inning has been a blessing for this team, who are working on bringing around the clutch hitters to get runs counted for those players that get on base.

There are only three players returning from last year, giving the team the experience and knowledge that they need, but there are many new players that are keeping the Geoduck spirit alive. New players like Trevor Kinahan and Megan Edwards are creating a team that is feeling like a team. “Hearing support from other team members has the power to carry the team’s motivation,” Dahl said. With the remaining games against Central Oregon, the team will have to rely on that support if they want to achieve their goal of beating last year’s record of one win.

The Geoducks play over at Olympia High School when they are scheduled for home play. The last games of the year are home games on April 28 and 29 against Central Oregon Community College. “The games are going to be exciting for the spectators.” You have the oppurtunity to see the Geoducks build team ethics and try for their first win. Go online for information about the team and Geoduckbaseball.wordpress.com.

Make Up Game In The Works

Seattle University and Evergreen State will make up a rain out from earlier in the season. The game will be played the weekend of May 5th and 6th. The exact time, date, and location has yet to be finalized.

April 8th – Look At The Bigger Picture

In a game where the Geoducks lost again to the Eastern Washington Eagles, this time by a count of 11-1, the trip home was a pleasant one as many positives could be found in the series closing game. If you like finding trends, here’s one that can make fans believe that this team is improving. In the first game of the season, they gave up 28 runs, and then after that they followed up by giving up, 22, 37, 27, 25 22 and now 11. What’s the trend? In the past five games they’re runs allowed as gone each game. “I think guys are more comfortable with each other, they know who can do what and they’re just playing baseball now instead of trying to make the spectacular play as if they’re trying to prove to the other teams that they’re better than the reputation,” said Kip Arney on the way home from the trip. “If I could get the guys to forget about the past and just play ball with the mentality of no scores, there would be closer outcomes because they wouldn’t be pressing and trying to get it all back with one blow of the bat.

“Sunday’s game was by far our best performance of the year, and I told the guys that they just raised my bar of what I expect of them,” he concluded.

The game itself was record breaking as pitcher Gavin Dahl set a single game record with nine strikeouts. The Geoducks also played with a lead for the first time this season as they scored their only run in the top of the first when Trevor Kinahan scored on a Gavin Dahl single. However the Eagles came back with a run of their own in the bottom of the first inning and then three runs (all unearned) in the bottom of the second to take a 4-1 lead. Evergreen State was never able to get a steady offense going and after EWU tacked on another run in the bottom of the 4th to make it 5-1 Eagles, the game turned into a stalemate. Gavin Dahl  gave the Geoducks everything he had while playing a on a sore leg that he injured while pitching against Seattle University earlier in the season.

Because the game was being played 9 innings, the 10 run mercy rule doesn’t come into affect until the after seven innings. Well here was the game going into the bottom of the 7th with only 4 runs seperating the two teams and to this point in the season, it was the longest game Evergreen had been involved with. But the bottom of the 7th came with mental bloopers as the first two batters reached via errors and another error came later in the inning for a total of three before a single out was recorded.

Soon the Geoducks found themselves down 10-1 with the 11th possible run for EWU standing 90 feet away on third base. And  unfortunately that runner scored on a passed ball that got away from the catcher and the runner scurried home for an Eagle victory and series sweep.

After the game, Kip noticed his players were hanging their heads but he said they had nothing to be ashamed of and he’d never been so proud of them as he was during that game.

“It’s games like this that make me remember why I accepted this position as coach in the first place and makes me want to continue with this team.”

April 7th – Geoducks Get On The Board

Evergreen State lost again to the EWU Eagles 22-1 in the nightcap of the double header but in the bigger picture finally scored a run. However, in Geoduck fashion, it seemed fitting that the run came at the expense of an Eagle error. It started when Dan Visser led off the inning with a single and then advanced to second when first baseman Zach Newman hit a slow dribbler out in front of home plate where the catcher fired it to first for the out. Visser watched the play develop and he had such a great jump when Newman made contact, that he was already at second before the ball reached the first baseman’s glove. Upon seeing this, Visser took the aggressive approach and tried to sneak over to third base. The Eagles first baseman saw this and fired the ball to third base but if was offline and after Visser slid into third causing a dust cloud, he realized the ball had gotten away from the third baseman and Visser coasted home for the Geoducks first run of the season. Because the run came via error, Newman was not awarded the rbi.

While the Geoducks were in the field, they again had trouble staying away from the big inning as again in three of the four innings they spent in the field before the mercy rule came into affect, they gave up at least 6 runs in an inning including a high 10 runs in the second. The 10 run second inning was the sixth time out of 24 innings in the field where Evergreen State has allowed 10 or more runs in a single inning.

The loss drops the Geoducks to 0-6 on the season.

April 7th – Different City, Same Result

Hoping that a change of scenery would change the Geoducks fortune on the field was crushed immediately in the first game of a double header on Saturday, April 7th. The Geoducks visted the Eastern Washington University Eagles and were dealt another shutout loss, this time 25-0. Manager Kip Arney tried to shake up the lineup a bit and placed senior, Antonio Olguin on the mound to start the opener. In the previous two series, it was sophomore, Trevor Kinahan who was given the nod in the opening games, but Arney felt like a change was needed. Olguin had previous been used as a mop up reliever and was making the first start of the season. One thing that Arney liked about having the senior on the mound was that he didn’t mess around and let the batters put the ball in play. But when the infield behind him failed to support him by booting the ball for 3 errors through the first 7 batters, it was no shock to see the first inning end with the Eagles having a commanding 19-0 lead. Once again the offense remained non-existent as they only mustered two singles, one by catcher Dan Visser and the other by designated hitter Dave Raileanu. After the first inning, the defense for Evergreen State settled in and gave up only 6 runs over the next three innings.

Making his Geoduck debut was freshman pitcher Ben Ziakin. The lone lefty on the squad definitely showed his inexperience as he gave up a single to the first batter and then proceeded to let that batter advance all the way to third on two balks, which is when the pitcher makes an illegal motion while on the pitching mound and awarding the runners on base to automatically move up one base. After the double balks, he gave up another single and then served on a platter a home run to EWU’s big power hitting first baseman, Shane Hummel. It was Hummel’s third bomb on the season and he leads the team in that category and in rbi’s with 19. However after the giving up the long ball, Ziakin settled down to retire three of the next four batters before heading back to the dugout.

April 4th – Pereida-Perry Still Out

Despite attending and participating in practice on Wednesday, April 4th, centerfield Ian Pereida-Perry will not accompany the team when they travel to Cheney, Washington to take on Eastern Washington University for a 3 game series April 7-8.

There are no other serious injuries to report.

April 1st – Seattle Takes Two

The Seattle University RedHawks are the only victims to have ever lost to Evergreen State on the diamond. But this time around, there was no mistake in proving who the better team was as Seattle took both games in the double header.

The first game started out terribly for the Geoducks as in the top of the first, the RedHawks jumped out to a 15-0 lead. But only 5 of those runs were earned as the Geoducks beat themselves with errors aplenty. The bleeding didn’t stop in the first game as Seattle cruised to a lopsided 37-0 victory behind the pitching of Sean Namanny. Namanny’s only mistake was to the first batter he faced when senior Geoduck shortstop, Antonio Olguin ripped a fastball into the right center field gap for a lead off double. After that, Namanny was locked on as he retired the final 15 of 16 batters with 6 strikeouts and never let a ball get out of the infield.

The second game was more of the same ending in a 27-0 RedHawks win. RedHawks pitcher Nick Richey was named national pitcher of the week as he threw a perfect game against the Geoducks, only the second ever in the leagues short 7 year history. Evergreen State was not surprised to see one of their opponent’s players be the player of the week in the league, let alone the conference seeing as it happens on a regular basis. “What are we supposed to do?” commented manager Kip Arney. “We don’t have any fireballers on the mound and we never see any pitching in practice. So it doesn’t surprise me to see other teams excell against us. A lot of teams begin the season with goals of winning the conference and then winning the league championship. Our goal…not to let other teams have their statistics skewed because they’re superior to us by a wide margain.” Arney continued to vent his frustration after the series by saying, “We aren’t this bad. But with our lack of practice, I don’t see us getting much better.”

Evergreen State has fallen to 0-4 on the season and has yet to score a run. On the season, the Geoducks have been outscored 114-0. “Are you kidding me?” asked Kip when he was told of the stat. “That’s ridiculous.”

March 31st

A scheduling change up all went for nothing. Originally, Evergreen State was scheduled to host a double header against Seattle University on Saturday, March 31st. However, since Evergreen State plays their home games on Olympia High School’s home field, Olympia HS has priortity. Despite Evergreen State having a two games scheduled, Olympia HS decided to reschedule one of their own eariler rainouts on March 31st. Evergreen was sent rushing around trying to move the games around and settled on a 5 PM start time after the Olympia HS game was over and have the double header be moved to the following day, Sunday, April1st. However when March 31st finally rolled around, the rain clouds did as well and the game was postponed due to rain and a make up game has yet been scheduled.