Article

Baseball Looks to Build on Record Breaking Season

Mavs seek record 21st North Central Conference title and first back-to-back championship since 2002.
by Tyler Buckentine
Issue date: 3/1/07 Section: Mens Sports

2007 Spring Sports Preview

For many successful baseball teams in history, pitching has been the main ingredient for victory.

Take for instance the trio of Greg Maddux, John Smoltz, and Tom Glavine that helped the Atlanta Braves who dominated hitters throughout the '90s. Then look at the Arizona Diamondbacks' duo of Randy Johnson and Curt Schilling who shared the 2001 World Series MVP award.

On the local front, the defending NCC Champion Minnesota State baseball team also plans to rely heavily on its pitching staff to try surpassing last season's school-record 43 wins and advancing to the Division II World Series.

"We've got ten pretty good pitchers," said Mavericks head coach Dean Bowyer, who is four wins away from 1,000 career victories. "Our ERA is 1.75, which is incredible this early in the season, but we have to find out who our top four pitchers are for the starting rotation. We'll give them all the same amount of chances. We don't give them a lot of innings, but a lot of appearances."

The pitching staff has racked up 60 strikeouts through 36 innings so far in 2007. Dane Secott claims 16 of those Ks followed by Jon Bjelland with 12. Both are seniors entering the season as the No. 1 and 2 pitchers in the starting rotation. Senior Danny Klous will be No. 3.

"We have our top three guys, but No. 4 is still up in the air for a couple of guys to battle with," said Mavericks associate head coach Matt Magers. "That's one thing that makes this year better is the competition. We have eight quality guys that we can go to."

MSU is looking to a pair of freshmen to fill in the fourth spot in the rotation. Pat Lenton and Chris Odegaard will battle for that spot. The Mavericks will rely on an experienced core of relief pitchers, including Lee Hodges, Matt Mathiowetz, Tyler Sander and Jake Reuvers. Senior All-American Nick Fellman, who led the Division II in saves last season (18), will be the closer.

"This year's team has the chance of being one of the best ever," Magers said. "We have twelve seniors and six of them are pitchers so we have some good pitching coming back. We think we have some good recruits in our junior college guys and a couple freshmen we expect to step up."

MSU has an experienced outfield that brings power to the plate in senior Eric Austvold and juniors Adam Sudbeck and Zach Danelson. Sudbeck led the Mavericks in homers last season (15) and Danelson has two of the team's three home runs in 2007 as a leadoff hitter.

While shortstop Scott Kemp and second baseman Nick Gonzalez anchor the middle infield, the corners are still question marks. The Mavericks have used five different players at first and four at third. Through five games, senior Pat Ottum has done most of the catching.

"We're strong up the middle, whereas third base and second base we're pretty undetermined," Magers said. "There's quality guys there. It's just a matter of who's going to step forward."

"We're going to use this trip and the Florida trip to shake out who our top players are going to be," Bowyer said. "We've platooned a little bit at third. We moved Kosuke Hattori over there and he looked really good and had good offense."

Speaking of MSU's offense, power isn't the focus in 2007. The Mavericks plan on using speed to score runs in 2007. The Mavericks are 21-for-21 on stolen bases and have an inside the park home run.

"We don't try to hit a lot of home runs," Magers said. "We're more of a slap-hitting team that gets on base and can steal and do hit and runs.

"Hitting usually struggles earlier because they haven't seen the number of repetitions and usually the pitching is a little stronger. Hitting will come around and that's where you look for your senior leaders to come around, step up and do the job."

The Mavericks expect junior newcomer Kyle Hoover to play the role of power hitter in his first season at MSU.

"Kyle Hoover has the potential to be a power hitter and hopefully hit some home runs," Magers said of Hoover, who transferred to MSU from Blackhawk Community College in Iowa where he hit six home runs in 2006. "He's going to hit the ball. There's no question about that."

"We obviously want to win the conference and make it to the World Series and place high," said Hoover, a candidate for the first base and designated hitter positions. "This program is awesome. I came here to win games and everyone is older and more experienced, so it's better ball."

One team that could give the Mavericks the most trouble is Nebraska-Omaha. Each team has won an NCC title the past two years, but MSU won six of seven games against UNO in 2006. MSU meets UNO in Omaha May 4th and 5th for a pair of doubleheaders to close out the conference season.

"Predominately, Omaha has given us the most trouble in the past," Magers said. "The conference, top to bottom, it stacks up to be pretty competitive. We expect to win it with the number of guys we have back.

"The biggest thing is that we stay healthy, mentally and physically, we'll be OK," Magers said. "We've been through the big games before. The sky is the limit for this team if we stay away from the injuries and the mental slumps that one goes through."

Tyler Buckentine is the Reporter Assistant Sports Editor