The Candor

Issue date: 3/16/10 Section: Sports

Media Credit: Matt Libs The 2010 season has begun for Benedictine's baseball team, but they were rained out during the annual Florida trip.

Sunshine, beautiful weather and baseball in the state of Florida were all in the making for a perfect start to the season Benedictine Baseball team. Instead, they won one of the four games and they were rained out for the final four games. Coach John Ostrowski, who is in his 38th season as the skipper of the Eagles, described the trip as the worst one yet for him and his team.

"This was the most frustrating spring trip because we were rained out more games than we played and we suffered three one-run losses," said Coach Ostrowski.

Despite the 1-3 start to the season, Coach Ostrowski and his staff were pleased about some of the things that they saw from the players.

"It's early, but we look at different people and we get a sense of what our lineups will look like and we like to give upperclassmen opportunities to prove themselves."

In the opening games of the season, five freshmen took advantage of opportunities and have proven to be good players. Michael Cottier, Kevin Crowley, Tim Gindville, Kevin Hendricks and Nick Karakosta played well for the Eagles in Florida.

Crowley and Cottier are pitchers, Gindville plays at third base, Hendricks is in the outfield and Karakosta is at shortstop.

"This was an exciting time because you get to see young guys step up and prove that they can play on the college level and handle the pressure.

There are a number of young players who look like they have a great future in our program and I'm very excited about that."

Junior Jake Thompson, senior Kevin Ross and junior outfielder Josh Zenawick played well on the trip as well according to Coach Ostrowski.

"Jake pitched an unbelievable game. He allowed only one run in eight innings. Ross had a lot of big hits for us and Zenawick swung the bat well and provided a lot of offense for us," added Ostrowski.

The trip to Florida has been described as "Spring Training" for the team, but if they want to win the Northern Athletics Conference, they will have to play better and realize their potential.

When asked what he wants his team to take away from this trip going forward, Coach Ostrowski said, " I want my team to realize that they have the potential to be a good team and we can reach our goals. One of our goals is to win the conference tournament.

"We have to get quality pitching and we need guys to step up. Pitching is going to get it done and we have a lot of question marks with our rotation."

The Eagles next contest will be this weekend in St. Louis, Mo.
There, they will play a double header on Saturday against Illinois Wesleyan and Washington University with the rubber match being played on Sunday against Washington University.

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