MACOMB, Ill. – The 2016 baseball season is finally here, and Western Illinois head coach Ryan Brownlee will take his Leatherneck squad to Tennessee Tech for a three game series against the Golden Eagles.
Rain in the forecast for Sunday forced an adjustment to the schedule. Friday will be a doubleheader starting at 3 p.m. and Saturday remains a scheduled 2 p.m. start.
Brownlee, who begins his fourth year, was able to again take his team outside in recent days to prepare for the 2016 campaign.
"Until last week it was a great winter, we were able to get outside quite a bit. It's just nice to be out here to get in the routine, to take ground balls off the bat, take fly balls, some of the sign sequence stuff you cannot do inside. It gets you a little more game-ready," said Brownlee. "I always feel like we're more prepared when we're able to get outside before we start playing. It should set us up to have success this weekend."
Western returns 21 letterwinners this spring, including six with starting experience in the field and two of the weekend starters. Ten of those returners are sophomores, many of whom gained valuable playing experience last year and will be counted on again. The Leathernecks return six seniors, three pitchers and three position players. Brownlee noted that experience helped the team pick up where it left off from fall practice.
"We didn't miss a beat (from the fall). With this group I didn't think we would have any setbacks. They're a mature group, we have a group of older guys who have done a good job making sure our new guys transition to Division I. I would have been very surprised if we didn't come out ready to go for spring practice," said Brownlee.
Seniors Nathan Pollock (Lakewood, Ill.) and Mark Garton (Roscoe, Ill.), juniors Chris Tschida (Joliet, Ill.) and Adam McGinnis (Normal, Ill.) and sophomore Colton Pogue (Blue Springs, Mo.) will be counted on with the offense. Pollock will play the outfield while the other four all made starts on the infield. Garton and McGinnis are expected to see significant time at catcher.
"Our first five guys (Tschida, Pollock, Pogue, Garton and McGinnis) will probably the same, then we'll be able to mix and match depending on pitching match-ups and how guys are doing. Obviously we'll try to put our new guys in a position to face guys they are going to be successful against," said Brownlee. "It's nice because the last two years we've flipped-flopped guys through. We had a bunch of different line-ups last year. I don't think that'll be the case this year unless we have some guys go down but I think the top part will be pretty set throughout the whole year."
Senior Joe Mortillaro (Middle Village, N.Y.) and junior Preston Church (Ogden, Iowa) return on the mound and both logged more than 70 innings last year. Church was tabbed by Baseball America as the Summit League's 'Preseason Pitcher of the Year'. Also back after redshirting in 2015 is junior Aaron Michel (Decatur, Ill.).
Michel, a 2013 Louisville Slugger Freshman All-American, owns a career 2.62 ERA in 130 innings, posting a 7-8 record. According to Brownlee, he will likely start the year in the closers role.
"I've had people ask are you going to be better pitching or better hitting, I think we'll have a good blend on both sides and our defense should be much better. It's nice when you roll guys out there who have experience, even our sophomores threw a lot as freshmen," said Brownlee. "Then you have Aaron (Michel) back, and Aaron is a big one. You can either close with him or start him. He's very versatile because his stuff is really good. That will be our biggest question mark early, just to see who will close games. But Aaron is going to fill that role, and if we need to put him in that closer role all year he will be all right in that role."
The Leathernecks' head coach also believes another year of experience will help his team on defense.
"Really our whole line up last year had guys playing out of position. It's nice to have a set defense out there of guys that have experience in the spots they're in. We played much cleaner baseball last fall because of that, we handled the ball much better. That's just an experience standpoint. It should be a fun team to watch defensively."
SCOUTING THE GOLDEN EAGLES: Tennessee Tech returns 14 letterwinners and seven starters from last year's team that finished 26-29 overall and 16-14 in the Ohio Valley Conference... TTU returns the OVC 'Rookie of the Year' Ryan Flick, who batted .275 with 57 RBI and 10 home runs... Tyler Brazelton is the top retuning batting average at .315 with 26 RBI, 39 runs scored and a .468 on-base percentage... Evan Fraliex went 4-3 with a 5.89 ERA in 15 starts... Travis Moths was 5-4 and a 5.69 ERA in eight starts (19 appearances)... He picked up a save and Kyle Godwin recorded two saves... Western leads the all-time series versus Tennessee Tech 3-2-1.
CHURCH NAMED PRESEASON PITCHER OF THE YEAR: Junior Preston Church was tabbed by Baseball America as the Summit League 'Preseason Pitcher of the Year'... Church, who led last year with 73.1 innings and 71 strikeouts, was 11th and fifth in the Summit League, respectively, in each category... The junior left-hander made 18 appearances and started 11 times, finishing with a 2-7 record and 3.93 ERA – tops among the WIU starters. His ERA was seventh-best in the Summit League... He pitched a season-high eight shutout innings in the win over Evansville, and closed out 2015 with 7.1 innings pitched against Omaha and Oral Roberts.
POGUE LOOKS TO EXTEND STREAK: Colton Pogue carries an 11-game hitting streak into the 2016 season, a career-high total for a sophomore who played as a true-freshman last year... Pogue was named Summit League 'Player of the Week' on May 6th... He started his streak with a hit in the win over SIU-Edwardsville on April 29, and closed out the season going 16-for-47 with 10 runs scored.
FOLLOW THE ACTION THIS SEASON: In-game tweets are available by following Leatherneck Baseball on Twitter @WIUBaseball. Fans can follow @WIUAthletics on the Periscope app for a periodic in-game live feed this weekend. All home games and select road contests will be broadcast and televised live on the Leatherneck Sports Network (audio and video) for All-Access subscribers. |
