Loyola’s men’s baseball team enters the 2009 season under second year head baseball coach Gerald “Gee” Cassard with concerns most baseball coaches dread when graduation time approaches; departing seniors.

With the loss of alumnus Brian Mason, A ‘08 and Joshua Borges A ‘08, the production the baseball team received over the past few years from the third and fourth hitters in the lineup will experience a sharp decline this season.

A year ago, the Wolfpack finished the season with an 18-33 record, 10 of those wins against conference opponents, matching the same number of wins as the 2007 season.
Despite popular belief that success is measured by wins and losses, Coach Cassard doesn’t want to determine a set number of wins the team needs to reach in order to be successful.

“Our program is trying to grow,” he said. “We don’t want to put a total on wins, they will take care of themselves as long as we do the right thing and get better each day.”
Every team has strengths and weaknesses, but a major strength the 2009 team has, according to Cassard, is the leadership of the veteran players and the depth of the bench.
“Having that depth gives us maneuverability so we can get a lot of different guys on the field,” Cassard said.

The Wolfpack returns 13 upperclassmen that have game experience and welcomes 13 first time freshmen, but will need to replace former starters Borges and Mason.
“Mason and Borges were good players,” said Mike Kelly, business management senior. “They brought power to the team, but we need to play a lot more scrappier this year with the guys we have.”

According to Cassard, it’s tough to replace those guys so the team will have to play small ball this year, consisting of strong defense, stealing bases, bunting to place players in scoring position and sacrifice flies.

Kelly believes that the freshman will play a role in replacing Mason and Borges and have an immediate impact on the team.

“They will keep us from getting stagnant and make us feel as though we still have to earn our spots,” he said.

One of the key returning players will be outfielder and leadoff hitter Kevin Fontenot, physics senior. As the leadoff hitter, Fontenot’s role is reaching base safely, understanding certain situations in the game where he needs to bunt or swing, and scoring as many runs as he can.

Fontenot does whatever the team needs and is willing to sacrifice his own personal stats as long as the team wins.

“This season I don’t have any goals set for myself, I just want to have a successful season no matter what it takes,” he said.

Cassard, Kelly and Fontenot believe there is no one area in particular to strive toward to improve themselves as a team, but focusing on every aspect of the game can lead them to becoming overall better players.

The baseball team begins the season against Gulf Coast Athletic Conference opponent Tougaloo College on Jan. 23 at Segnette Field.

Craig Malveaux can be reached at [email protected].