Bearcat baseball restocks offensive attack for 2015
FILE PHOTO
Northwest sophomore right fielder Austin Wulff takes a cut at a pitch during a game last season. Wulff is hitting .429 on the young season with three hits in seven at-bats to go along with four walks and a homer through the first three games of the 2015 season.
Editor’s note: The Daily Forum will be previewing every high school and college team in Nodaway County as the spring sports season approaches. This is an installment in a series that will be published over the course of the next several weeks
Entering the 2015 season, the Northwest baseball team has plenty of holes to fill from last season’s team that finished 23-23 with an 18-20 MIAA mark.
After losing four of its regular starting position players and its top two arms in the rotation, the Bearcats are aiming to take the next step subsequent to missing out on last year’s postseason by just two wins.
On the pitching staff, Northwest lost Ryker Fox, third team All-MIAA, and Austin Warren, who posted the two highest innings totals on the team at 76.1 and 56.1, respectively. Filling in for Fox and Warren will be an array of arms, including senior Kole Klocko, sophomore Anthony Caenepeel and freshman Brad Roberts, who picked up the first three starts of the season last weekend.
“Those were a couple pretty good arms for us last year,” head coach Darin Loe said. “Austin’s record maybe didn’t show as much as Ryker’s, but Ryker was a guy that we thought was gonna win every time we stepped on the field, and Austin was going to put you in a position to win.
“This year’s recruiting class was heavy on pitching, that’s what we really needed to go out and get. From our standpoint, we wanted to do it with younger players. … We might not have that Ryker Fox right now, but I think our top guys are pretty good and the depth of our bullpen is quite a bit deeper than it’s ever been.”
Through three games, Northwest stands at 1-2 with its win coming Feb. 7 in a 16-4 victory over Northwestern Oklahoma State. The Bearcats dropped the first pair of contests of the season to Northwestern Oklahoma State and Regis University, 12-11 and 9-7, respectively.
With four everyday players missing from last season’s offense — outfielders Jon Pomatto and Ryan Abernathy, shortstop Brandon Huske and third baseman Eric McGlauflin — the Bearcats will have to replace a considerable amount of their offense. Pomatto earned an All-MIAA honorable mention selection in 2014.
“I think we had a good fall to identify who we wanted out there and really try to identify roles,” Loe said. “This past opening weekend, we played a lot of players to see what everybody could do. It’s kind of fun because we have a group of guys — (sophomore infielders) Luke Wilkinson and Nikko Pablo — that also pitch and split time at third. We’ve got a couple guys that can play infield and outfield, move around, make some changes. It’s kind of a unique team, we don’t just have those nine guys that we have to rely on.”
One new face in the Northwest lineup is sophomore left fielder Kolby Greenslade, a transfer from Fort Scott Community College (Kansas), who filled in the three-hole for Loe on opening weekend.
Greenslade garnered six hits in his first 15 at-bats for the Bearcats, smashing a double and a triple while driving in three runs.
“Kolby’s just a great athlete,” Loe said. “He runs well, he throws well, he plays a great left field for us. Just a simple swing that can hit for average and power. It’s takes a good mental approach to be a three-hole hitter, as well, not putting too much pressure on yourself. Kolby’s just a laid-back kind of guy and he’s able to handle that mental pressure of hitting in the three-hole.”
However, Greenslade wasn’t the only sensational newcomer for Northwest. Freshman catcher Nick Howard pelted a pair of home runs in his first two at-bats as a college player in pinch hit appearances, one in each of the first two games of the season.
Through three contests, Greenslade and Howard have helped the Bearcat offense tally a whopping 34 runs — but fielding and pitching issues have plagued Northwest, allowing 25 runs.
“The pitching staff, I think we had some errors,” Loe said. “Had some plays that maybe didn’t show up in the scorebook — we probably lost four or five balls in the sun that end up being base hits, if we catch them, it’s a different situation. One of our errors was on a double-play ball that would’ve eliminated three or four runs in that inning. Certainly we have to be better on the mound, but I think we’ve identified where guys need to pitch and the guys that we need to have on the mound.”
The Bearcats continue their season with four games against Cameron University this weekend with the first game scheduled for 2 p.m. Friday in Lawton, Oklahoma. A noon start time begins Saturday’s doubleheader, followed by the final game of the series at 1 p.m. Sunday
