The University of Akron Athletics
Zips Baseball Newsletter
February 24 | Baseball
Dear Alumni and Friends of Zip Baseball,
The Diamond Zips were 3-1 this weekend at The Duke Classic in Durham, NC. Friday's game vs. St. Louis was a big win for the program as they are this year's pre-season favorite to win the A-10 title while coming off a 2013 conference championship and NCAA Regional appearance. Sophomore LHP Johnny Valek kept the Billikens off balance with fastball command and his signature changeup. Johnny came down with the flu before last weekend's series at Winthrop, and we kept him from his scheduled Friday night start as his symptoms were lingering. He did pitch in relief though, and recovered 100% during the week to get back to form for this weekend. Johnny pitched five scoreless innings giving up only one hit before turning it over to the bullpen.
Offensively, we faced a very experienced right hander who made a rare high fastball mistake to junior 1B Matt LaRocca that produced a run-scoring double to put the Zips in the lead for good. We made the best of our four hits, winning 2-1. Recap
Game one Saturday vs. LaSalle was played at the USA National Training facility in Cary, NC. Junior LHP Pat Dyer got the win and kept LaSalle in check with six innings, three hits, and one run given up. We were able to begin the pitching careers of freshman RHP Masashi Sakamoto and redshirt freshman RHP Evan Jensen who looked very poised for their first opportunities. Both also pitched in Sunday's game vs. Duke and again did well. Junior SS Matt Rembielak and senior DH Grant Alvarez were 3-for-3, and LaRocca had his second home run of the year to lead an 11-hit attack. Zips win this one 7-1. Recap
Game two vs. LaSalle was a late addition to the schedule this past week in order to play as many innings in as possible because we'll head back north into the cold and snow, which inevitably means 'INDOORS'! We lost a game to weather last weekend at Winthrop, and needed desperately to get a lot of players valuable time on the field. Twice we came from behind in this game with the second opportunity occurring three runs down in the eighth inning. A big two-out, RBI double by junior OF Joey Havrilak highlighted a two run deficit in the 7th. A couple of our relief pitchers struggled with command and gave up a three-run 8th inning, but we came right back in the bottom of the frame for four runs and the lead again. RHP Michael Steensen was outstanding in his 6.2 innings of work. Redshirt junior RHP Andrew Fanning bailed them out with a gutsy 8th and 9th inning. Zips come back to win this one 8-7. Recap
We fell to Duke in our final game of the weekend 5-2, and our guys played with a competitive fire to the final out. Duke took exception to redshirt junior Devan Ahart lining a bullet off the starting pitcher's hand, and also sliding hard into second to break up a double play which forced the second baseman from the game. Duke's pitcher proceeded to send a fastball up in the head area of Devan in his next at bat which didn't faze him. Devan responded with a hard ground out and a double in his next two at bats, which gave him a 3-for-4 day and a dose of grittiness for the whole team! He is our best overall athlete and our three-hole hitter who has the ability to take complete control of the game both defensively and at the plate. Recap
A good weekend overall with three wins and signs of a promising handful of pitchers. The added depth this year is something we haven't had since I've been here. We will continue to work with both the pitchers and position players on their individual weaknesses this week before we travel to Delaware State next weekend.
Follow along with the team this season through our webpage or social media on Twitter (@ZipsBB) and Facebook.
Sincerely,
GO ZIPS!!!
