An almost-no-hitter. A grand slam. A come-from-behind victory.
The Elon Phoenix baseball team used all three to begin the 2012 season on the right foot, picking up three victories in all of their games this past weekend over non-conference opponents.
“It’s kinda early to tell, but the areas that we thought we would be good at, we did those things well,” Phoenix head coach Mike Kennedy said. “Starting pitching was very, very good, base-running was very, very good. For the most part, we played solid defense. Those are things that we’ve been preaching that, in order for us to do well, we have to do.”
The prime example of that starting pitching was junior pitcher Kyle Webb, who took a no-hitter into the seventh inning of Elon’s 7-1 victory over the University of Akron Feb. 17 before giving up an inning-opening double to Akron redshirt freshman outfielder Joey Havrilak. Webb finished the game with six strikeouts, giving up just three walks, two hits and one earned run in seven innings.
“He was outstanding,” Kennedy said. “That’s the kind of outings you’re looking for against Friday night guys. He’s going to have a lot of very difficult match-ups throughout the season. That was a great start for him confidence-wise.”
The next of those huge match-ups for Webb will come when he starts Feb. 24 against the University of South Carolina, the back-to-back College World Series champions, in the first of a three-game weekend series.
“We’re treating it just like any other game,” Webb said. “You don’t play it any different. We just play our game and hopefully come out on top.”
Another key piece the Phoenix will need to bring to Columbia, S.C., is its run-scoring ability. Elon out-scored its opponents 15-5 in the three wins. Four came off one swing, a grand slam by sophomore second baseman Sebastian Gomez in the fourth inning against Akron. In their double-header against George Mason University Feb. 18 — both wins — Elon scored eight total runs and gave up just four.
The Phoenix is getting a lot of early contributions from the upperclassmen on the team. Senior Jake Luce, junior outfielder Niko Fraser, catcher Alex Swim and senior shortstop Garrett Koster combined for 21 hits over the three games. But Kennedy said it is still too early to see if that leadership by example is enough.
“We’ve had a number of guys step it up,” he said. “I don’t know that it’s great, but it’s still better than I thought it would be at this point. And hopefully this season, as guys react to situations, will tell what kind of leadership we had. We’re not going to win every game — some guys aren’t going to go seven innings — some guys are going to go (hitless) with a strike-out, then how do we respond to that? That’s when we’ll know what kind of leadership we have.”
One thing he was fully pleased with was the play of some of the newcomers. Transfer and junior pitcher Nate Young pitched two scoreless innings and picked up the win in the Phoenix’s 4-3 comeback victory in the second half of the double-header against George Mason. New junior closer Jordan Darnell, who redshirted last season, picked up the save in that game and freshman catcher Michael Elefante had two hits and an RBI in six at-bats in his first weekend of collegiate baseball.
“It does a world of good for those guys confidence-wise,” Kennedy said. “You always want to try to come out and get off to a good start. When you don’t, you start pressing and you start trying to do too much. For the most part, those guys did a really good job, and they’re going to have to. They’re going to be thrown into the fire and hopefully they can handle it.”
With the team still trying to work out starting lineups (13 different players started the field for the Phoenix), they will be put to the test against the Gamecocks. After that, it’s Southern Conference play.
“Next weekend, after this weekend against South Carolina, we’ve got conference (play), so we don’t have a lot of time to play around and move a lot of guys,” Kennedy said. “So you’re trying to make sure guys understand roles and can handle certain roles, and if not, it’s going to be one of those years where you have to change it on the fly.”
But the moniker of “two-time defending champs” does not faze Kennedy.
“We’re going to work on doing the things we have to do well, hopefully throw a lot of strikes and catch the ball,” he said. “If we do that, I think we’ll be in the games and you’ll have to execute at the end.”
Even with big highlight moments.