Trojan Baseball played their final baseball games of the season finishing 21-33 overall under first year head coach, Nic Love, and his staff. Breaking records and doubling the win total from the previous season, the Trojans were just shy of making the NJCAA Region 10 conference tournament.
With this being the fourth year of the baseball program, 21 players returned from last season to be a part of quite a
different season of baseball. “Implementing a culture that revolves around development on and off the field was vital to the structure within our program. I was fortunate to walk into a situation where we had good people. I think in any organization that is where it starts. Our guys bought into the culture quickly and because of that we saw a lot of change in just a short amount of time.” said Coach Love.
The team accomplished a series win the first weekend of play and things just kept moving up from there. The team tied the number of program wins just one month into play with 9 wins, breaking the record shortly after. Not only did they exceed the number of program wins, but they also doubled categories including hits, runs, doubles, RBIs, and stolen bases. The Trojan baseball team finished the (2021-22) season with a team average of .273 with 440 hits and 263 RBIs compared to last season (2020-21) where they finished with a team average of .270, 255 hits and 138 RBIs.
Sophomore, Reece Woody, had a standout season for the Trojans. Finishing the season with the most hits (67) and RBIs (36) for this Trojan roster made him a threat at the plate and on defense with 101 putouts. Michael Starrs added to the action leading the team with the most runs scored (45) and walks (26). This put him as threat on the bases finishing with 14 stolen bases finishing just behind Woody (23), Tyler Senter (19) and Evan Anderson (15). The team stole 159 bases as a whole compared to last years 15.
“We talk a lot in our program about playing fast, playing fearless and playing aggressive. From an offensive standpoint, I think we were able to put that on display this year. We aim to create chaos in hopes of putting pressure on the other team. It is something I think our players really took to early in the fall and adjusted more as the season went on. It excites me to see what some of these returners can do with the system we have in place for next year,” said Coach Love about the offensive success this past season.
Even though accomplishing so much this season, the baseball program still has one big goal to push for, a conference tournament appearance.
When asked about next season, Coach Love has a lot of things he is excited about. “I owe a lot to the players who are moving on from this program. They took me in as a first year head coach and bought in to everything me and my coaching staff implemented. I’m excited to see where their journey takes them next. With that being said, I am excited to begin to shift our gears towards next season with a good group of returners and our first recruiting class. It’s an exciting time to be a Trojan and we can’t wait to keep building on the foundation that was set this year.”
Reece Woody and Michael Starrs receive all conference NJCAA Region 10 DII Baseball honors.
Link: https://www.region10sports.com/sports/bsb/2021-22/diiawards
