A Down and Up Season: Siena baseball

It’s not easy being a baseball team from the North. After an 18-hour long bus ride back home from one of the Siena Saints’ early season trips down south, the players arrived in Loudonville, NY in freezing temperatures only to find the bus door frozen shut.

They were trapped.

After the school’s public safety personnel and maintenance crew from both the bus company and the school tried to free the frozen door – they both failed. The team was forced to improvise. They needed to regroup. Find another way.

They did, by way of an emergency exit. It was almost foreshadowing for the Saints.

In the second week of March, nearly a month after the season started, the Saints had yet to put a mark in the win column, losing nine-consecutive games on trips to Florida, Louisiana, and South Carolina playing the likes of Central Florida, Louisiana-Lafayette, and Charleston Southern.

They were trapped.

Larry Balkwill // Photo: sienasports.com

“Before the season started we knew we could be a very good team, but starting the season off at zero and nine, then losing the first five of six conference games were also very tough on everyone mentally,” Siena catcher, Larry Balkwill said. “We had only played six conference games and it seemed like our season was already over.”

One of the beauties of sports is the yearly renewal of optimism and hope that comes with the start of every new season. Whether it is fans or players, each looks at a new season as a clean slate, a new opportunity to succeed.

From the starting gate, playing well and getting that first ‘W’ early is stressed as the key to building confidence and chemistry, paving the way for a successful campaign.

Siena felt like they couldn’t get out of the starting gate – let alone play well. Until a trip to Brooklyn, NY.

The Saints hammered Farleigh Dickinson. They outscored the Knights 26-10. Siena then split a two-game series with NCAA Regional-qualifying Stetson and – after getting mercy-ruled in the first game, 13-0 – won three-of-four against Dayton.

But, as quickly as the success came, it went.

An eight game losing streak ensued and after the first game of a doubleheader against the Rider Broncs on April 15th, the Saints were 11-22 overall, 1-6 in the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference, or MAAC.

Balkwill, a junior, concluded that the struggles may have, in the end, helped the team though – something right-hander C.J. Sohl echoed.

Dan Paolini // Photo: sienasaints.com

“When we started losing those early games we just stressed stay together as a team and the wins will come,” Sohl said. “Our team throughout the season just became closer and closer and by the last couple weekends, we were so close it felt like no one could beat us….”

Sohl, a 6-foot-4 senior and key contributor out of the bullpen said, during a team meeting halfway through the season that everyone “spoke their mind” and cleared the air. Sohl’s battery-mate, Balkwill, suggested the team started to really get into a groove.

“I think that it helped us because we started to relax and play the way we could,” said Balkwill. “We also became much closer as a team and stuck together for the rest of the season.”

By the end of the regular season, the Saints had turned a dreadful start into a 26-28 record and a third place finish (14-10) in the MAAC.

Led by standout second baseman Dan Paolini, a career .380 batter with 56 home runs in just three seasons and a player described by many as the programs greatest ever, the offense, while inconsistent at times, was always a constant threat. But the key to their comeback, as Sohl and Balkwill explained, was consistent pitching.

Siena baseball coach Tony Rossi // PHoto: sienasaints.com

Starting pitchers Justin Brantley, Zach Hartman, and Kyle Sumple all posted sub 4 earned run averages and freshman reliever Neil Fryman, the proclaimed “surprise of the season” by longtime coach Tony Rossi, posted a miniscule 1.47 ERA in over 36 innings of relief.

Following the regular season, the Saints competed in the MAAC conference tournament, the winner moving on to play in the NCAA Division I Baseball Championship. The Saints took out 2-seeded Rider and 4-seeded Canisius on their way to the championship game against Manhattan College.

The championship game didn’t end well, though. The Saints suffered a 5-1 defeat, the Saints ended with a successful late season run leading them to a destination every team hopes for at the start; a shot at the title.

The 2011 Siena Saints illustrated there isn’t just one path to the title. Sometiems the door is – frozen – shut, that’s when it’s time to find another way.