Baseball

Base­ball Sea­son in Full Swing

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The Bethel Athletic Park sign outside of Jenkins Stadium. Jenkins Stadium is home to the Bethel University Baseball team. Photo courtesy of Robert Schrock.

MISHAWAKA—Af­ter grad­u­at­ing eight se­niors a year ago, the Bethel Base­ball ros­ter was go­ing to be young head­ing into this sea­son. With ques­tion marks all around the field for the Pi­lots, Head Coach Seth Zart­man and his staff had to find some an­swers.

“I’ve been re­ally pleased, over­all,” said Zart­man. “This group de­cided early on that they were go­ing to have great ac­count­abil­ity with each other, and our team cul­ture is re­ally strong. These guys are do­ing a great job. We’ve got re­ally good vet­eran lead­ers with this group. Since the fall, our de­vel­op­ment and im­prove­ment have been very good. These guys have worked hard with what we’ve put in front of them.”

So far this sea­son the Pi­lots have seen a host of sopho­mores set up on the of­fen­sive end. Eli Mac­Don­ald, Thomas Dolan, Do­minic Diesler, Je­remy Wiersema, and Ty Mick­iewicz are all bat­ting above .300. Not only have the Pi­lots seen im­prove­ment on the of­fen­sive side of the ball, but they have also seen a cou­ple of key arms de­velop on the pitch­ing side of things. Sopho­more Frank Ple­sac has put up a 2.38 Earned Run Av­er­age in five starts for the Pi­lots with a 2-2 record.

“I feel that we have im­proved every week­end,” said Zart­man. “I think that cul­mi­nated it­self with a week­end split with IWU. It’s just a tes­ta­ment to our guy's hard work. They con­tinue to im­prove every day.”

As far as con­fer­ence play goes, the Pi­lots have got­ten off to a 3-7 start. This in­cluded a se­ries split with the No. 15 team in the coun­try, at the time, the In­di­ana Wes­leyan Wild­cats. The Pi­lots will play six more se­ries within their con­fer­ence be­fore post­sea­son play be­gins. The Cross­roads League tour­na­ment will be­gin on May 6 and con­clude on May 10.

“I think the num­ber one goal is to be a post­sea­son team,” said Zart­man. “We want to be a post­sea­son con­tender for the con­fer­ence tour­na­ment. I will tell you that win­ning a reg­u­lar sea­son cham­pi­onship is a part of that goal, but to be a post-sea­son team is our ul­ti­mate goal. We set lit­tle goals within that, and I think our guys are do­ing a great job of ac­com­plish­ing those goals.”

For more in­for­ma­tion on Bethel Pi­lots base­ball visit https://​www.bupi­lots.com/​sport/​base­ball.

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