Varsity men’s baseball at UW became a casualty of Title IX in 1991; however, baseball is not dead on campus. The UW Club baseball team, born in 2000, is coming off a strong season last year and is looking forward to improving on its third-place finish at the National Club Baseball Association World Series.
Last year’s team was the first to make it to the NCBA World Series. This year’s team is almost the same and is hoping that experience will get them into a title game. The team only lost its starting shortstop from the position players and returns two All-Americans in second baseman Matt Nuthals (second team) and third baseman Jeremy Baier (third team).
UW has compiled a record of 10-5 (2-1 in conference) and, according to coach Jeff Booth, that record could be even better except for “some key errors” that prevented the team from completing a sweep against Iowa State.
Booth is in his second year as the Badgers’ coach after former head coach and current assistant coach Ben Towns stepped down from the top spot to work on his master’s degree. Nick Haley coaches the strong pitching staff, which is expected to lead the team again this year, as was the case last year.
Catcher Brad Dolezel is excited for the stretch run this season. He points to the fact that three strong pitchers have returned in addition to the solid lineup.
“This will be [Wisconsin’s] year,” Dolezel said. “[The team] has been there before now and [they] know what to expect this year.”
The ace of the Badger rotation is Sam O’Connor, a senior from Appleton, Wis. This year, in over 19 innings of work, Sam has struck out 10 against only two walks. He is second in the nation in walks per seven innings, averaging only .72.
Joe Doyle and Olin Erickson help to solidify the rotation. Both have 2-0 records this year and Erickson has posted a minuscule 1.10 ERA through 12.67 innings. Sophomore Joe Dunlap and senior Ryan McCullough close out the rotation that Dolezel expects to lead the team as the conference season gets going.
Although the pitching staff is the constant strength for the team, both Coach Booth and Dolezel are excited because the Badger bats are starting to wake up. The lone conference loss for the Badgers came when the team was shut down by Marquette’s ace. However, after only scoring three runs in the first game of the series, the Badgers have scored 45 runs in the past four contests. All four of those games resulted in Wisconsin victories.
The Badgers’ lineup is led by senior outfielder James Rieber, as well as Baier, both of whom are batting over .300. Rieber is leading the team with 13 runs batted in and while no one on the team is putting up huge power numbers, there are six everyday players with slugging percentages over .400. The hopes of the Badgers in the conference and national race will depend on whether their bats can stay hot.
This weekend’s series against UW-Whitewater is the battle for the conference. Whitewater is 5-1 in the Western Lakes Conference. Wisconsin is looking to take control of the conference with a sweep of the three-game series. Friday night at seven, the series kicks off at MATC’s Ryan Roberts Field, and then the Saturday double-header at Warner Park starts at noon. A sweep will place the Badgers in a dominant position, as only conference cellar-dwellers Eau Claire and Loyola remain on the schedule.
“We are seeing the ball better at the plate than we were this time last year,” Coach Booth explained. “We are confident our pitching will outdo and outlast our opponents’ bullpens in any three-game series.”
The team’s high hopes are based on the understanding that with hot bats and continued strength from the staff, the team will be hard to beat.
