The Whitman baseball team will finish their season this weekend, May 1-2, with a four-game series against the University of Puget Sound.
This will be the final weekend for six seniors: pitchers Pete Stadmeyer and Trygve Madsen, first-baseman Matt Morris-Rosenfeld, outfielder Dan White, outfielder/pitcher Calvin Davis and reliever Chris Faidley.
Stadmeyer, Madsen, Morris-Rosenfeld and White are four-year veterans, while Davis is finishing his third year on the team and Faidley his rookie season.
With such a large proportional representation, the seniors have an unequivocal presence on the team; come next season, their absence will be easily apparent.
“I’m going to miss the seniors a lot when they graduate,” said first-year Peter Olson, a pitcher on the team.
The Missionaries will play a double-header of nine-inning games on Friday, May 1 and a double-header of seven-inning games on Saturday, May 2. On Friday, the first game will begin at noon, while Saturday’s first games starts at 11 a.m.
“The team is trying to end the season right,” Olson said. The season has been a difficult one; the team has a season record of 3-30 and 2-25 in conference.
“I would love to go out with some final wins,” said sophomore Erik Korsmo. “It would be a great way to show [the seniors] off and give them a final thanks.”
When the team played UPS in a game during their preseason, they lost with a close score of 9-8. The Missionaries had overcome a 7-4 deficit to lead the Loggers in the fifth inning with a score of 8-7, but they could not hold on to the lead and ended up giving up the winning run in the eighth inning. While Whitman out-hit UPS 19-10, they left a total of 11 runners stranded.
The team is feeling good about the weekend and is confident about this time’s matchup with UPS, who is currently in sixth place in the conference with a record of 9-18 and an overall record of 12-23.
“UPS is a good team, but they’re a little young,” said Korsmo, adding that they had some key players graduate last year. “It’s a big advantage that we got to see their pitching earlier in the year so we know what to expect.”
The Missionaries have been improving their pitching and their hitting since their last game with UPS, according to Korsmo. However, he expressed concern at the recent injury of one of the team’s top pitchers, junior Blaine Mercado.
“We have been plagued by injuries all year long,” Olson said. “I think we may have a chance to finally get healthy this weekend and have fun.”
