The Elizabethtown College baseball team is preparing for a new season and the last playing in the Middle Atlantic Conference’s Commonwealth Conference before Etown makes a move to the Landmark Conference in the fall. The Blue Jays look to improve on their 17-22 (10-11 CC) record in 2013, which gave them a season finish of sixth place in the Commonwealth Conference, a game behind Messiah College, who finished with an 11-10 conference record.
The Blue Jays are coming off a good defensive 2013 season. They finished with a team in-conference fielding percentage of .954, and they allowed the second least number of runs in the conference, second only to Alvernia University, who finished the season with a conference record of 18-3. Etown also hit its way to a .304 batting average in 2013, the third best in the conference. The Blue Jays will look to keep their batting averages up.
The team will also have a new look this season. Last year nine seniors graduated. One former player the Jays will certainly miss is catcher and designated hitter Dillon Tagle. Tagle started every game in 2013 for the Blue Jays and finished the season with a .357 batting average. He led the team in runs batted in and on-base percentages. He finished at or near the top of nearly every offensive category. Before leaving Etown, he also left a mark on the record books. Tagle holds the career doubles record at Etown (57), sits at second in career hits (185) and is tied for third in games played (154).
Fifth-year senior shortstop Kyle Gable currently holds the fourth spot on the career stolen bases list at Etown with 60. Last season, Gable was able to successfully steal 22 bases on 26 attempts. If he repeats the same kind of production in 2014, he will jump into second in career steals at Etown.
It was not just on the base path that Gable excelled in 2013. He led the team with 143 at-bats, ending the season with an overall batting average of .378 and a conference batting average of .404, which was good for second best in the Commonwealth Conference.
Head Coach Cliff Smith will begin his eighth season at Etown. He has coached the Blue Jays to a 158-124 record in his time at the helm. He led the Blue Jays to conference titles and NCAA tournament appearances in 2007 and 2009. He has also coached the team to five 20-win seasons in his seven seasons at Etown, and in 2010, he became the fastest coach to win 100 games in the program’s 80-year history. Smith looks to battle back in 2014 from the lowest win percentage of his head coaching career (.436).
“While we did lose a fairly large group of seniors, we played a lot of younger guys last year. The core of our roster is in the first and second-year groups (25 players in those two classes). We are excited to get a healthy Alex Holbert back, and Taras Letnauchyn is back after taking a year off,” Smith said. “We will need our young players to make strides, and through our first two weeks, I am very happy with their level of strength and conditioning. A number of guys are noticeably stronger, and I am hopeful they are ready to play a significant amount.”
Jan. 19 marked the first of Smith’s winter baseball camps this year. The winter camps are for youths ages 6-18 and are run every year by Smith, the assistant coaches and various Etown baseball players. This year, the camps have taken place every Sunday beginning on Jan. 19 and they will wrap up this Sunday. The focus of the camps is to develop proper baseball mechanics and build strong work ethics and sportsmanship.
The Blue Jays will kick off the 2014 season with a doubleheader against Dickinson College in New Market, Va. on Feb. 22 before heading to Fort Pierce, Fla. during spring break for a series of nine games against various opponents. The team will return to Etown for a home-opener against York College at Kevin Scott Boyd Stadium on March 11. Etown will host archrival Messiah College on April 11.
