Trinity College trying for perfect baseball season

Pat Eaton-Robb, an AP writer out of Hartford, Connecticut is reporting:

Tiny Trinity College is streaking again, this time in baseball.

The Division III school, whose football team won 31 in a row before losing a game in 2006 and whose men’s squash team hasn’t dropped a match in more than a decade, is 32-0 this season in baseball.

The Bantams have a chance to end the regular season undefeated when they play a doubleheader at Wesleyan on Saturday.

“Going into the season, we knew we had a real good team,” said senior pitcher Michael Regan, who is 7-0 with an ERA of 1.37. “Me and my roommates would joke around saying, ‘Whoa, we could run the table here.’ But we didn’t really think we could do it.”

If they can, they will make history.

No college baseball team has gone undefeated to win a national championship. The Division III record for wins to start a season is 33 by Johns Hopkins in 2004. Trinity could eclipse that with a sweep on Saturday.

Texas had a 34-game streak to start its season in 1977 and Division II Savannah State holds the all-time mark, winning 46 in a row to start the 2000 season.

“It’s a good season,” said junior catcher Sean Killeen, who is batting .407 with six home runs. “But going undefeated is not what our ultimate goal is. Our ultimate goal is to go to regionals and then to the World Series. If it means going undefeated to do that, than that’s great.”

The Bantams will host their conference tournament May 9-11. The NCAA Division III regional championships will be held in Harwich, Mass., on May 14-18.

Trinity lost in the NCAA regionals a year ago, finishing the season 30-8. The Bantams made it to the Division III World Series in 2003 and 2005, going 0-2 in the championships both years.

There have been some close calls for Trinity this season. While the Bantams have outscored opponents 298-79, they’ve also won three 1-0 games and five others by two runs or fewer.

On March 25, the Bantams were tied 0-0 with Springfield headed into the ninth inning.

“We end up throwing a guy out at the plate in the top of the ninth then we come back and score a run and win 1-0,” Regan said. “Obviously, a good team is going to find a way to win, but at the same time it’s like, `Wow, we’re able to sneak these out on tough days.”’

Another defining moment, players said, came on April 19, when the Bantams trailed Tufts 8-1 in the fourth inning, but came back for a 17-10 win.

“Every guy has an incredible competitive drive,” said pitcher Tim Kiely, who is 7-0 with a 1.47 ERA. “We are not OK with accepting failure, and that’s been a huge thing.”

The team denies it has had any superstitions, though Kiely acknowledges he wakes up the morning of every start to the same song, and says every time second baseman Ryan Piacentini or first baseman Kent Graham make an out, they change bats and batting gloves.

“We don’t have anything though that we say, ‘Man, we’ve got to do this or we’re going to lose the game,”’ he said. “Those are more routines.”

Whatever they are, they seem to be working. Coach Bill Decker, who has had 17 winning seasons in his 18 years at Trinity, said this is perhaps the most talented and loosest group he has coached.

“If they feel pressure, I certainly don’t see, feel, recognize that they’re going through that,” Decker said. “They just play today, then move on to the next one.”

Besides, they still have some 150 games to go before they can challenge the Trinity squash team’s mark of 183 consecutive wins.

“I don’t know what it is,” Decker said. “Our football program, our basketball program has been successful, our hockey program has been successful, our track program has been successful. After 18 years at one school, I can say this, at Trinity, you have a chance to compete, and you have a chance to win.”

-Yahoo.com