Baseball Finishes with Record of 4-35
BY COLIN SMITH

The Yeomen’s season came to a watery end on Tuesday, as the team’s final scheduled doubleheader against Grove City was rained out after an inning and a half. The team ended on a down note as Earlham College, whom the Yeomen had beaten earlier in the season, shut them out in two games last Friday and Saturday, 8-0 and 11-0. 
The losses came on the heels of the Yeomen’s doubleheader sweep of LaRoche college on May 2, in which sophomore Zach Pretzer set the Oberlin College record for hits in a season with 41. The team finished 4-35, falling short of last year’s 7-28 mark, while going 0-12 in their division.
“That kind of just summed it up for us,” first-year Troy DeWitt said of the two losses to Earlham and the rainout.

(photo by Brad Coryell)

Oberlin’s line scores told the story in the Earlham games: zero runs, one hit and four errors in the first game, and zero runs, four hits and seven errors in the second. The Yeomen’s defense allowed 12 unearned runs in the pair of games, while the offense only got 10 men on base.
“Hitting is contagious and errors are also [contagious],” first-year John Damron said of the team’s 11 miscues in the series.
First-year Robert Smith started the first game, pitching all seven innings and allowing eight runs on 11 hits. However, only four of the runs were earned. He did not issue a walk and struck out one. Smith has been the Yeomen’s most consistent pitcher, leading the team in ERA at 5.48. He left his own mark on Oberlin baseball history, setting records for appearances as a pitcher with 20 and for innings pitched with 87. In those 87 innings he only walked 12 batters.
“You can always do better,” Smith said of his season. “It’s a season to grow, a season to learn how to pitch in college.”
DeWitt started Saturday’s game and got even less defensive help, as he surrendered 10 runs on nine hits, only two of which were earned. In his five innings of work he walked one and struck out three. The offense managed just four hits against Earlham’s starter, who pitched a complete game and struck out 11.

DeWitt took the loss, but was the winner in two of the Yeomen’s four victories this season, as he led the pitching staff in strikeouts with 46. Damron and first-year Peter Wyatt had one win apiece.

Pretzer finished the season with 42 hits, setting a new high for Oberlin baseball and leading the team with a .328 average. Going into the doubleheader against LaRoche he had needed three hits to tie the previous record of 39. He proceeded to collect five hits in the series, tying the mark in the first game by going three for five and breaking it in the second with a two for two performance. The previous record was shared by Chris Donaldson, who did it in 1988, and Andy Smith, who did it in 2000.
“There were times he was up there you knew he was going to get a hit,” Smith said of Pretzer.
Several teammates trailed Pretzer closely. DeWitt and Damron both tied the previous mark with 39 hits and were two of the four Yeomen who finished over .300 for the year, at .305 and .325, respectively. Senior Chris Irish also broke the .300 mark, finishing at .310. First-year Chris Bamat finished the season with 34 hits and a .286 average, and also tied with DeWitt for the team lead with seven doubles and 22 runs batted in. For the year, Bamat tallied a team-leading .395 slugging percentage.

A few Yeomen set other offensive records this season. Pretzer and DeWitt set a new record for at-bats in a season with 128, breaking the record of 122 set by Irish last year. Pretzer, DeWitt and junior Bob Montag also set the school record for games played, starting in all 39 of the Yeomen’s contests. Montag was hit by a pitch nine times this year, also a new record. Irish broke the previous record for walks in a season toward the midpoint of the season and went on to post a new mark with 33 walks. Not surprisingly, he led the team with an incredible .532 on-base percentage.

Irish, who served as captain this year, is the team’s only senior and the only core player who will not be returning next year. Irish tied Pretzer for the team lead in runs scored with 26, and stole 13 bases, which was second only to Pretzer’s 22. Irish did, however, miss nine games because of a hamstring injury towards the end of the season.

“We lose a guy who can do anything for us,” Smith said of Irish. “He’s a great leader on the field, a great lead-by-example kind of guy.” But, Smith also said “There’s potential [for leadership] in a lot of guys.”
DeWitt summarized the year by saying, “At times we showed flashes of being a good team, but overall we just shot ourselves in the foot. We have a lot of room to grow.”
With 12 first-years and just four upperclassmen on the team this year, the Yeomen suffered from both inexperience and lack of manpower.
“We never played a team with as few guys as we have,” Smith said of the small roster.
Despite the low numbers, Damron said that this year’s team was dedicated. “This year we’ve had everybody stick to it through the whole year.” In previous year’s players have left the team during the season.
These problems should be alleviated next year, as this year’s rookies will have a year of college baseball under their belts, and the program is expecting a similar number of recruits from the class of 2005.
“It’s going to be a lot of work,” Smith said, “[but] I think next year we’ll be so much better.”