MEN'S BASEBALL: Apaches looking for fast start in spring southern swing
By Dan Harcharik
Going into his fourth year as head baseball coach, Bob Koopmann has put together a solid team.
"I believe we are balanced everywhere," said Koopmann.
In the pre-season national rankings, IVCC was ranked 14th in the nation, mainly due to their record of 38-22 last season, but they have 16 returning sophomores this year including pitcher Jeff Weber who said, "We snuck up on teams last year; this year teams will be looking for us."
In the season openers, March 2 and 3 in Tennessee, the Apaches beat the Cumberland College J.V. team in both games, 6 – 1 and 18 –9.
Sophomore pitcher, Dave Nitz, got the win and threw a complete game to start out the season. Sophomore Wally Zukowski threw the second game and picked up his first win of the season.
Play that had been scheduled for March 4 was canceled because of rain, as were the originally scheduled season openers in St. Louis, Feb. 24 and 25.
Looking at the team’s strengths, this year its their defense and pitching. The Apaches have 17 pitchers, eight of them sophomores. Sophomore Ryan Baily is the only pitcher temporarily hurt, due to his elbow surgery, which Coach Koopmann calls the biggest loss. Baily said that he will not be out for long so he seems eager to get back on the mound. He went 7-1 last year on the mound, with seven saves.
Defense is another team strength, particularly in the infield according to Coach Koopmann.
The only weakness is overall team power compared to last year’s team. But Koopmann does not like hitting to be called a weakness because he said he knows his team will score runs.
The fall season should have an impact on the spring season, because, Koopmann said, "They know how to play together, with each other and that was the biggest thing."
He also said that he has to see each individual play, which might help determine the starting line up for the spring season.
Conference play will be a little different this year. There will be a total of 20 conference games, which means the Apaches will play each team twice.
The Apaches were second in the Conference last year with an 8-2 record. They finished behind Kishwaukee, which was 9-1 in the conference last season.
Black Hawk and Sauk Valley finished three and four in the conference last season, and Koopmann is predicting the same four to head the conference this time.
"The top four teams in the conference are excellent," Koopman said. " It should be the same this year. We can finish anywhere from first to fourth, but we won’t finish any lower than fourth."
Kishwaukee is a Division I team so when it comes to the playoffs the Apaches won’t have to worry about Kishwaukee.
Sophomore catcher Matt Glupczynski said the team’s goals are "to improve our season last year by winning regional and try to go farther in playoffs than what we did last year."
Last season the Apache men were knocked out of the playoffs early with one win and two losses.
Glupczynski said the team would also like to win 40 games, surpassing last season’s 38 games, which set a school record.
During mid-semester break, and after press time, the Apaches were scheduled to play 14 games in eight days in the sun and warm weather in Arizona.
The first home game is set for March 20 at 2:30 p.m. against Waubonsee on the IVCC field that has been under repair.