Loyola’s freshmen are getting valuable experience despite Loyola baseball winning percentage dropping below .500 with a month left in the regular season.
“I’m happy with the growth (of our young players) but we’re not satisfied with the record right now,” said head baseball coach Gerald Cassard.
He said that part of the reason for their number of losses is that the team is still developing: “Part of it is growing and maturing. The thing we have done is given ourselves opportunities to win games but we haven’t necessarily finished games all the time. We’d like to change the outcome but that comes in time.”
Starting third baseman and biology freshman Caleb Templet talked about the difficulties of making the jump from high school baseball to college baseball.
“The pitching is a lot better (than in high school),” Templet said. “The balls are hit harder and people are just bigger, stronger and faster. Everything in general is just faster.”
Templet said that one of the aspects of the game that has changed the most is the quality of the pitching.
“You have to discipline yourself to not swing at bad pitches and avoid getting down in a count,” he said. “If you get down in the count they’ll throw you a curve ball that you just can’t hit and get you out.”
Templet’s plate approach is paying off as he’s leading the team in RBIs with 21 with a 3.33 bating average.
The increase in the skill of the competition didn’t stop all the freshmen on the team from cracking the starting line up.
“We’ve got five freshmen playing significant roles,” said Cassard.
Aside from Templet, who was named GCAC player of the week in late March, Management freshman Bradley Brunet is starting at catcher and calling pitches. Unlike Templet who was not sure of his ability to make the starting line up, Brunet expected to start.
“I wasn’t surprised to be starting this year,” Brunet said. “I knew I had the ability.”
Brunet also said that he didn’t need to make any big adjustments to his swing when facing collegiate pitching. Brunet is currently batting .245 and is second on the team in strikeouts with 18. While his offensive numbers may not be the best he is second on the team in put outs with 95 and has a fielding percentage of .941.
He did however point out that there are two teams in particular who make it tough for Wolfpack bats to get hits.
“All the pitching at this level is good but Belhaven and LSU-Shreveport probably have the best pitching staffs,” Brunet said.
While Brunet has been the primary starter behind the plate, biology freshman Steve Daigle has also been getting some playing time behind the plate as well, though he was not cleared to play for the first few weeks of the season due to a severed tendon in his right hand.
“He doing a really good job coming along offensively after getting sidetracked by an injury early in the year,” said Casard
Cassard also gave praise to one of the ‘Pack’s freshman pitchers.
“Joey Pajares has pitched some innings for us in some key spots and he’s had some good results so we’re excited about him,” Cassard said.
The general studies business major has logged more innings than any other freshmen on the roster with 20 innings pitched. He is also averaging 6.75 strikeouts per nine innings.
As the season enters the home stretch and the GCAC tournament draws nearer the Wolfpack will be hoping to continue to get contributions from its freshmen. With the team underperforming again, Templet said that the low win total dose not reflect the skill on the roster.
“Our record is a little worse than the way we’ve played so far,” Templet said. “Next year it’ll be different.”
Hasani Grayson can be reached at [email protected]
