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Last October, the Wilfrid Laurier menโs baseball team claimed their first Ontario University Athletics banner in school history, shocking the top-seeded Brock Badgers. With the 2014 campaign underway, bench boss Ballantyne is focusing on the process to that same end goal.
โWe know what it takes to win after being there last year,โ he said. โWe know that weโre not going to win the championship on September 6 or September 7, itโs going to be late into October.โ
โItโs really about trying to gel at the right time and trying to pull it together near the end.โ
They started off their season in the right direction, sweeping their doubleheader against the Ryerson Rams Sunday afternoon.
In their first matchup of the regular season after playing 10 preseason games and finishing 4-6, the Hawks defeated the Rams 6-2 and 7-0.
Ballantyne stressed that team chemistry and key performances were the reasons that the Hawks came out on top.
โWe had 10 preseason games so itโs not like itโs the first time weโve been on the field together,โ Ballantyne said. โOur strength is our starting pitching and we saw that today with Jordan [Petruska] and Brett [Van Pelt] giving us two great outings. Itโs a great start, for sure.โ
Pitching was the strength for Laurier, as Petruska worked eight innings and gave up one run on three hits with a single walk and eight strikeouts in the first game. His relief, Zach Lawrence, gave up one unearned run.
In the second game, Van Pelt put on a performance good enough to earn him OUA athlete of the week honours, as he pitched a complete game shutout giving up two hits with one walk and 10 strikeouts.
Van Pelt, a fifth-year pitcher who was instrumental in the OUA championship win last season, believes the Hawks have a strong core group made up of a large group of rookies and only six fourth-year players.
โIt was good to get out there and get two wins and get our season going to hopefully capture our ultimate goal again this year,โ he said.
โI think if we put everything together, thereโs no reason why we shouldnโt be back in that championship game.โ
Jonathan Brouse, last yearโs winner of the Laurier Presidentโs Award for top male athlete, went 1-for-5 with a stolen base in the first game and 1-for-3 with two runs score, two stolen bases and a walk in the second game.
Last season, the Hawks drifted along the .500 margin for the first 10 games before starting to come together. With a season stretching into mid-October, Ballantyne stressed that the focus is fixing the tweaks heading into the end of the season.
โWeโre building up to that, not getting too high, not getting too low and making sure weโre playing our best at the end of the year,โ he said.
Laurierโs next regular season action is this Saturday when they host the Waterloo Warriors at Bechtel Park. Game times are 12 p.m. and 4 p.m.
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