The Saint A’s baseball team has begun its 2024 campaign with lots of highs and some lows. This is a season of big change and new opportunities. The high flying hawks were ready for take off after a long winter hibernation, coming off a tough 11-35 season last year, these hawks were ready to strike back in determination at the rest of the conference.
Many of the incoming freshmen were looking forward to showing off what they had to offer. It’s important to keep an eye out for the young guns, so you can see how they will blossom into true collegiate ballplayers. But the hawks were beginning their season with a new skipper at the helm, Harry Oringer was promoted from D3 to D2 from the Endicott Gulls. It is always suspenseful when a baseball team hires a new skipper because you never know how the season will go for you with the new manager.
So this is going to be an exciting season. “In comparison to the 2023 season, we appear as a completely different team, both on and off the field,” says senior Matthew Michel, “The structure that organization now possesses could be a contributing factor to the successes that have been shown early on”. The hawks migrated down south to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina to open their season against Southern Connecticut.
The hawks got their first win of the season the very next day against SCSU when they shut them out 10-0 in the 2nd game of a doubleheader, they had 9 hits as a team with many career firsts that day, freshman Shea Howrigan turned in his first multi-hit game while senior Adam Dow, sophomore Ben Rose, and freshman Mavrick Bourdeau all hit their first collegiate home runs. Later on in the season, the hawks put up a slugfest in a doubleheader sweep of Saint Michaels, putting up 18 runs in the first game.
Senior Nolan Elmore went 3-4 with 5 RBI’s, and freshman Declan Ryan launched a triple to center to make it a 3-2 game though the bats were truly alive, the hawks had trouble holding onto the ball, committing 3 errors and 2 errors in a 5-2 game 2 win, but hey, everybody makes mistakes. The doubleheader sweep was a big spark that the team needed after a topsy-turvy start. The hawks swept another doubleheader later on March 10 against Dominican University, which included a clutch 3 run homer by Nolan Elmore in game 2 , Freshman Brayden Michaelson also turned in his 1st career hit in the same game.
These 2 games were the 10th and 11th meetings between the 2 teams all-time, Saint Anselm improved to 10-1 against Dominican all time. The next game was one that the team wanted to forget, down in North Carolina, the hawks went up against Barton College, who got votes in the NCBWA Division II Nation Poll, and what followed was a tremendous beatdown which in a 19-3 hawks loss, a silver lining was that senior Aidan Dow and freshman Mavrick Bourdeau combined for 5 hits in the game.
The hawks slipped and fell again the next game against slippery rock when they were no-hit and shutout. The Hawks currently sit a 6-10, but there is a lot of time left in the season, “We are trending in the right direction” says senior Griffin Tomaszycki, “We currently have a 6-10 record going into conference play, which is not where we wanted to be, but we have learned a lot about ourselves in the first month of the season”. Though the hawks are 6-10,they have a new skipper at the helm and many new pieces to the roster,it looks like big things are on their way.
