Baseball to rely on experience to bounce back in 2014
Last year's baseball team was all about youth getting experience.
One year after reaching the Mid-American Conference finals, the Chippewas held onto the final spot in the MAC tournament in 2013. With experience gained last year, the team's youth have the experience to help lead a return to the MAC championship in 2014.
"We were a young team last year, so now we get everybody back," said junior pitcher Jordan Foley. "It's good to have that experience."
Baseball America picked CMU to finish first in MAC West, while the preseason coaches poll voted the Chippewas second in the conference.
CMU has three top-10 prospects including No. 1 Foley, junior Nick Regnier and sophomore Logan Regnier - brothers in the outfield.
"Going into this season, we have some roles defined that we didn't have this time last year," said head coach Steve Jaksa. "Hopefully we'll have a couple other guys show well, too. We'd like to think that will give us additional depth if we can come in and hit the ground running."
Two of the newcomers from last season showed what went right and wrong for the Chippewas, and they will be counted on to improve their roles.
Senior shortstop Noel Santos returns after he struggled in 2013 with a team-high 20 errors and lost his starting role in his first season out of Copiah-Lincoln Community College.
"He let things bother him that he never let bother him before," Jaksa said. "He was more worried about losing his position than playing the game and you can't play that way."
On the other hand, Logan Regnier returns to the outfield after a quality freshman campaign, during which he hit .288 with seven triples and 25 stolen bases. CMU is going to look for him to improve his numbers to help the team climb back on top of the MAC standings.
"I'm working on my approach to the plate and to try to be more relaxed," Logan Regnier said, "seeing more pitches and being more comfortable while taking pitchers deeper in the counts."
The Chippewas finished 25-32 overall last season and 12-15 in the MAC, the programs first losing season since 2009 and its second since 2003. Having 22 letter-winners returning from last year will be pivotal to prevent the team from facing back-to-back losing seasons for the first time since 1931-32.
"Everyone knows how we did last year and they know how we don't feel like that again," Logan Regnier said. "We know where we want to be at the end of the season"
